Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Journal 3 Reading Response from Collin Thacker
My active reading is well...different. I've never been exposed to this type of intense reading and comprehension. But I love it! It brings out the basic need for reading and shows that reading as well as writing is an important key task to do not just in college, but outside of school too! Although I do feel like I’m struggling to go into depth with what I learn in A Long Way Gone. It just doesn’t seem interesting to me... is that wrong? On the other hand, A House on Mango Street is a book picked to my liking! It’s packed with sadness, wit, humor, and most of all, personality! I had no problem getting into this book. It’s a medium pace life of Esperanza finding her place in the world with the help of a house on mango street which is why its the book I prefer.
A common theme I’ve seen in these two books is not only having worth in what you have but finding your place in the world and being content with it. “Someday Ill have a best friend of my own, one i can tell secrets to. This clearly shows that Esperanza hasn’t found that sweet spot of where she belongs in life. This is important to understand because it shows the uneasiness there is and the tension in their lives because they need to find their self worth away from what the world so hastily taken away.
kinda funny actually...my highlighter died early on and so most of my notes are in pencil!!! just until recently i got a new one so..... going to be a little different!
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Collin, thanks for getting us rolling! I think it's normal to prefer one book over the other and I kind of knew you would like the poetic nature of Cisneros, and I'm glad you do. There is so much to learn from her writing style and ability to risk much in language to find the truth.
ReplyDeleteFor Beah, I think something that I can say that may help is that you are in many ways reading about people who never would have had their story told if Beah would not have written. The characters in his book are real people who lived and wanted to live just like you do. Unfortunately, for many of the characters, they met death far too young and far too much. I feel we owe them our attention and I have great empathy for the young people especially who get their childhood stolen because of irresponsible adults. I get rightously angry over things like that, and it propels my interest. You will soon see that the life of people like Saidu is very real, and Saidu's story is a testament, along with many others, that we can take with us forever if we want to, and learn from it. That's the power of testimony.