Learning to Read by Dylan Baker Attention class! Time is up, please turn in your timelines.

my seventh grade teacher yelled. I was relieved, the work was finally over. We had just finished reading Tom Sawyer, and our final assignment was to create a timeline of the plot of the book. It was quite easy, but was extremely time consuming due to the vast amount of events that occurred throughout the book. I particularly excelled at this type of work because I was able to pay attention to details pretty well. I handed in my timeline and sat back down. That was easy, I thought, we already read the book! These types of assignments were assigned all throughout middle school. They were simple; they only focused on details and didnt require any higher-level thinking. Up until high school, I approached reading in a simple manner. Every time I read a book, I just read it. I didnt explore; didnt look beyond what was simply written on the page. At the start of freshman year, I experienced some distress when I came to my English and Reading class. Instead of being assigned homework based upon the plot and major details of a story, we were assigned work with more depth. I had to look at themes, understand the motives of different characters, and even find the hidden metaphors within a story. Naturally, I met some trouble. It was hard for me to break out of the pattern of just reading books at face value. One of the first novels we read freshman year was Romeo and Juliet. It was a challenge for me, and the assignments that accompanied it were especially challenging. I was asked to track character development, look at some of the metaphors Shakespeare hid within the play, and also analyze the style of writing. I really couldnt do it. All my life I read for detail, for plot, for events. I never approached reading by putting myself in the characters shoes. I knew that if I wanted to survive high school English Id have to change and adapt to the different style of teaching and learning. It started, of course, with one of our first books, Romeo and Juliet. In order to better understand the more complex matters of the book, I forced myself to pretend to be Romeo in the story and think about what he was going through. I visualized different scenes and looked at the style that Shakespeare wrote in. I tried to look at what other students were looking at in the story, and I began to notice improvement in my reading comprehension. I starting participating more in Hackneys discussions in class, and I started to gain more confidence in my answers. Sophomore year I got better too, but I ultimately felt confident in my ability to read in junior year in Elevelds class. I liked that he required a reason for every question you answered in class. It kind of forced me to be sure of myself and really think hard. He forced students to think about their answers because he would constantly question everything. This style of teaching kept me on my feet and I didnt want to look stupid in front of my peers. My high school English classes helped mold me to be a better reader, and the Reading section of the ACT ended up being one of my top scores.