What I did-  

The 18th Abduction and Every Breath

            I read and chose to write about the 18th abduction by Patterson and Paetro and Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks. I chose the sets because the central idea presented in both texts revolves around hopelessness. For instance, in the Every Breath article, Hope’s life is clouded by bad luck as she tries to make love with Tru. On the other hand, in the 18th Abduction, Anna is hopeless that justice will be achieved through France’s courts. Also, her eyes are seen swollen due to crying, which further indicates her hopelessness. The other set I browsed through is the Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and the shadows by Alex North, the Girl Serpent Thorn by Melisa Bashardoust, and One to Watch by Kate Stayman.

            For the 18th abduction article, I used the strategy of using prior knowledge to read an article. As Anna lamented the impossibility of getting justice in France, I also knew it wasn’t easy, according to my earlier knowledge. Therefore, as I remained glued to the central theme, I was anxious to see if my understanding of the justice system was wrong. For the Every Breath article, the strategy I used was questioning. I often asked myself what I would do if I were confronted with the same love dilemma as was hope. If I was Tru, how would I behave in a romantic relationship where distance was always a barrier? At the beginning of my reading, I never wrote chapter summaries for the set of articles. However, I realized I needed the notes to understand better what I was reading, and I started making chapter summaries.

            From the two articles, the 18th abduction was the most difficult to read. The article contained terms that were more specific to the criminal justice system, making it hard for an outsider in the field to understand the storyline accurately.

Peers –

 I chose to read the section of articles titled “Literacy” – this is a topic I have strong opinions about and that affects my major, so it was an easy choice for me. I considered both “Universal Preschool” and “Food Insecurity” as well, but when I read the titles of the provided articles and realized that one of the Literacy articles was an opinion piece involving children and literature, I knew that would be my preference. 

I used a basic reading strategy for the Washington Post article, “The Long, Steady Decline of Literary Reading”, in that I simply read the article on my laptop and took a few notes for myself. For the magazine article I used a similar approach, I did not feel either of those articles would have any unfamiliar concepts or would require deeper reading. With both of those articles, I would qualify the strategy I employed as closest to this link (

Reading Strategies & Tips (Links to an external site.)

  ) as highlighted in our Week One discussions. For the scholarly article, “Library, Library, Make Me A Match”, I used the method I have been practicing in the last two weeks, SQ3R. I printed the article for ease of annotation, and then sat down with my highlighters, sticky notes, and notebook, and read it several times. I reviewed unfamiliar terminology, asked questions and recorded the answers, and paid attention to headers and keywords. 

As I mentioned above, I did read the magazine and newspaper articles with less scrutiny than the scholarly article. Besides the difference in length, the scholarly article seemed at a skim to be a lot more dense, to contain a lot more information and more correlating data to review. I did read all three articles at least twice, again though the scholarly article I returned to a third time to make sure I understood and processed what I had read. 

While I would not say I found any of the articles difficult, the scholarly article was by far the most time consuming. After my first reading, I reviewed words I had highlighted that I needed definitions or context for, answered some questions I had noted in the margins, and then read the article a second time. I found that the second reading was more informative, having better ideas of context and concepts I was able to really engage with the subject matter – I even wrote down some new questions during my second reading that I did not have during my first. By the third reading, I was comprehending fully the program instituted in the academic setting, and was reflecting on how my experience with public libraries would be different if they offered a similar service, as well as how the program could be modified for K-8 students, who are my target age demographic. In actuality, while this article was the most challenging of the three, it was also the most interesting to me, and I learned a lot from the program presented about academic libraries and engagement, as well as the correlation between library usage and active readers. 

• Compare the types of sources you read to that of your peers. How was reading these different sources the same as or different from your peers? Share whether you read any of the same articles, even if you did not end up writing about them.

• Your responses should be at least 100 words each.