From the beginning of English 110 versus the end of English 110, I can see the progress that I’ve made on active and critical reading. Annotating articles and other pieces of writings is a large aspect when it comes to an effective way to read. It makes it easier to point out the main focus of the paragraphs and allowing you to gather the important parts. With English 110, I have trained my mind to annotate and analyze the readings by paragraphs. I was able to focus on the main aspects of the readings and figuring out what the author(s) is trying to get across. As I was reading “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch” by Michael Pollan, I knew that it was a large reading to tackle so I wanted to highlight the main points and writing my thoughts/questions in the margin. For Journal 14 (shown below), I wrote about three different passages from the article and analyze each one. When the article sits right in front of me, the first thing that I do is read the whole paper, from the beginning to the end. The second time, I would take out a highlighter and a pen, and go by each paragraph of the paper. Susan Gilroy’s article called “Interrogating Texts: 6 Reading Habits to Develop in Your First Year at Harvard” provides important advices that are beneficial for critical reading especially for a freshman in college. Gilroy mentions that “Mark up the margins of your text with words and phrases: ideas that occur to you, notes about things that seem important to you, reminders of how issues in a text may connect with class discussion or course themes,” (Gilroy). This is an important piece of advice that I have benefited throughout English 110. With each paragraph, I would highlight the topic sentence and any arguments or supporting evidence that the author is trying to make. With the pen, I would analyze and write in the margins of any thoughts, notes, or opinions that I have. This method has been very effective in the way I read as it helps to gather information and understanding what the author(s) is trying to say.