As a reader, I often make less than critical decisions regarding the text of what I read. It's not that I accept what I'm reading as fact, it's more that I read it and move on with my life and leave what I have read behind me. In reading Patterns for A Purpose by Barbara Fine Clouse, I have found that this is an exceptionally bad way to go about things, especially as a college student. How can I make essays on what I read if I don't question it? How can I choose a position to defend if I allow myself to be nonplussed by the reading material? How will I learn anything if I do not allow the myself to question the world?
The answer to all these questions is that I simply can't. Lucky for me, Clouse offers solutions and easy ways to begin to question both images and texts. One of the things she suggests you do is determine the purpose of the image, which from there allows you to judge whether the image is effective or not. Take for example the image I used with this post- originally, I saw this picture of a pretty flowered tree rising from a book. It was aesthetically pleasing to me but when a tree rises from a book there are two options that readily spring to mind in my opinion. The first is that nature will one day over take all that man has made, and the second is that it symbolizes what was lost to create the book. Both of those meanings have nothing to do with reading critically and would not fit the tone of my text.
Another of her solutions is offering your questions to ask yourself, and inviting you to mark up books wherever you go! As someone who does not like pencils or touching paper very much this insightful comment does indeed make me a bit uncomfortable. I also like books looking spotless. She counters this by explaining that if you write as you read, your mind will connect the information deeper. According to Clouse, it will help you distinguish fact from opinion and "Stop you from going to sleep as you read." I can honestly see where that would come in handy. There have been a lot of nights where I fell asleep with a book only to wake up still clutching it in my hands the next morning, but not remembering at all the story I read before lapsing into slumber land.
I think it is best for me to adapt the ideas of Clouse at least for college. Maybe it will help me study better, and get better grades.
-Jasmine Peake
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