College Reading Reflection

a) Being forced to do the RRJs it made me to really analyze the text and pay attention to the
details. The RRJs would ask for a summary, if we enjoyed the section we read,
discussion questions and to find words we did not know write their definition. I would
circle the words I wouldnt know and then find the definition and put it into context. This
helped me to expand my vocabulary and helped me better understand the text. When
reading Spare Parts I would think about Cristian and how after the competition and
beating MIT that he was still unable to attend college because he did not have his papers.
It made me sad because he was really smart and wasnt able to put his knowledge at
work. When comparing his story to mine were different in the sense that I have my
papers and the luxury to attend college. Cristians story made me want to push myself
and not take college for granted.
b) I feel that my reading has improved comparing it to high school. Ive noticed that I know
and understand more words while reading. I still read slow but I learned that thats okay,
we all read at different paces. A method I have developed this semester was annotating or
reading to the text. Annotating helped me to better interact with the book or other things
I had to read. A book that was difficult for me to read would be a book we had to read for
English titled A Place to Stand: The Making of a Poet written by Jimmy Santiago Baca.
Baca would use a lot of imagery to explain concepts and used a lot of proficient words.
To help myself get a better understanding of the book I would reread paragraphs and
when I came across words I didnt know I would look them up in the dictionary.
Artifact 1
Spare Parts RRJ 1
This chapter takes place on June 25, 2004 at the University of California Santa Barbara at
the third annual Marine Advanced Technology Education Remotely Operated Vehicle

Competition. There is a group of four Latino boys from Carl Hayden Community High
School in West Phoenix. Cristian Arcega, Lorenzo Santillan, Oscar Vazquez and Luis
Aranda attend Carl Hayden a high school with a very poor reputation. Most of the kids in
that school are Mexican and live in a rough neighborhood so when the judges saw these
boys at the competition they didnt seem to be too impressed and didnt expect much
from them. To their amazement the judges were astonished when every single member of
the group was able to answer correctly on whatever was asked about their robot or how it
was operated.
Artifact 2
2. When reading the introduction, I was amazed at how well the boys prepared for this
competition. When I got to Oscar Vazquezs story I felt bad for him because he had been
working so hard to become a soldier but just because he was undocumented he was
unable to join. There was an upside to this he was able to join this group and become
something big with his friends. I felt that the judges were waiting for them to fall apart
and fail at answering their questions but they didnt. I can only imagine how they must
have felt being in a different environment and seeing other groups robots. In the book it
mentions that some teams had a budget of ten thousand dollars and all they had were
scrap parts.

Artifact 3
This picture is showing how I am interacting more with the text in comparison to when I
would just read. By doing this I was able to understand and what I read I was able to
remember.