Reading Notes. September 28, 2010

Reading Notes.

September 28, 2010

Gallop, " The Ethics of Reading"

After closely reading this piece by Gallop, I realized exactly how I had been projecting my preconceived notions onto every book, article, movie, song and person I had ever encountered. To really understand what you read, you need to first read what is literally there on the paper. This is a point that Gallop reinforces over and over throughout.

"For me, what makes them English courses are not the books we read, but the way we read the books we read." This really hit home. It makes perfect sense when Gallop says that we start to look for things in the text we are reading that will prove our preconceived notions about a subject to ourselves.

One thing that really helped me to understand "close reading" was the five things to notice while close reading.

1. Unusual Vocab

2. Unnecessary repetition of words

3. repeated images and metaphors

4. italics or parentheses

5. footnotes that seem too long.

By paying closer attention to these small details, the big picture and main idea float to the background and we can really understand what the author is really trying to tell us about the subject.

Note: I have not purchased the text yet so I did not read the Johnson reading. I will buy it as soon as I feasibly can.