When looking back on my approach to active, critical reading is printing out my articles that I need to read for my essays. That is the biggest thing I probably feel when you look at an article online you just read through it, I know I do, I can’t fully comprehend what I am reading. I print it out and then pick 2-3 colors of markers and I mark down what colors mean what sometimes I write “questions” for me needing more information on this part that I have just read, so when I am done a reading I search for a certain phrase or word that I don’t understand. Another color is “Facts” this I believe is a strong piece that I might be able to include in my essay and flow into other parts of my essay. I choose these two things to mark up when I was reading because it made me truly think about what I needed to ask myself and what information really was important and what information wasn’t important for my essay. When I was done annotating I then wrote a short piece on the reading I just read, I then ask myself why I highlighted this what part of my thesis will it support. Why did I think it was important and I also ask myself do I still think it’s important will it continue to be useful in my essay. Once I was done, we then talked about it in class and I wrote down some notes on the article that others have noticed and then I see if it could be useful for my writing and if it backs up what point I am trying to make when I write my essay. In my attachment, I show in my journal 14 how I responded to the interview of Doughty and her thoughts on the process of death.

Figure 1: Shows my ability to understand the text I am being asked to read and my process in which I have explained in my text above. I tend to like to use different colors to get my brain thinking about what I am reading and where there is more room for me to think more about this certain phrase or words.