Sabrina Shao's 7th Blog Post
This is not the first time that I will be reading Between the World and Me. It was one of the many books that I had to read for my AP English class my junior year. We were given four months to read the books. Unlike the other books that we had to read for class, we were told to read the book on our own. This means that we were not told to read to a certain page by a certain day. Instead, we could read it at any pace we wanted, as long as we finished it by the end of the four months. While we had this assignment, we were also reading another book. For this one, we were told to finish a certain number of pages by a certain day. Because we were reading this book and my personality in general, I did not start reading Between the World and Me until two days before it was due.
Since it was due so soon and I am such a slow reader, I ended up skimming the book and not actually getting very much from it. I got the general idea of the book, enough to write two essays about; however, every time I opened the book to find a quote for my paper, it would take me a very long time since I didn’t actually read the book and know what was happening. In my essay, I was blindly making points and hoping that somewhere in the book, there is a quote that will support my claims.
On Thursday night, I opened the book and actually read it. Instead of just reading the first line of every paragraph, I actually read all the sentences. The book makes sense now. I found the book very interesting. When Coates starts the book with “Son”, it gave me the impression that this was a letter to his son. It made it sound very official and serious, like he was going to give his son the secret of life, which in a way he was. From the first couple of pages, I can tell that he was showing his son the differences in their childhoods. He was telling his son that even though they grew up in different periods of time, time has not changed that much. They both still have to be concerned with the security of their bodies. This is a phrase that I really like. He uses the term “body” very leniently. When he is talking about his body, to an extent, he does not actually mean his physical body. The term “body” is referring to his whole existence.
Coates has a very special way of writing. It feels like every sentence he writes has a double meaning. To different people, his words can mean so many different things because he speaks in such general terms, making him quite relatable. When he says “Fail to comprehend the streets and you gave up your body now. But fail to comprehend the schools and you gave up your body later” (25), I think of how a lack of education means giving up my future and how a lack of connection with my culture and surroundings means giving up my present. Without any street smarts, you can easily be pushed over and run right out of existence by the world. I have been told this many times by my mother because apparently, I do lack street smarts. Apparently, I am “too nice” which sounds really dumb in my head because I have never considered myself nice. Anyways, the whole general idea of this is just to say that I am really glad that I have to read this book again. It really gives me the opportunity to really read it and since this is such a thought provoking book, it has made me think really hard about who I am.
Since it was due so soon and I am such a slow reader, I ended up skimming the book and not actually getting very much from it. I got the general idea of the book, enough to write two essays about; however, every time I opened the book to find a quote for my paper, it would take me a very long time since I didn’t actually read the book and know what was happening. In my essay, I was blindly making points and hoping that somewhere in the book, there is a quote that will support my claims.
On Thursday night, I opened the book and actually read it. Instead of just reading the first line of every paragraph, I actually read all the sentences. The book makes sense now. I found the book very interesting. When Coates starts the book with “Son”, it gave me the impression that this was a letter to his son. It made it sound very official and serious, like he was going to give his son the secret of life, which in a way he was. From the first couple of pages, I can tell that he was showing his son the differences in their childhoods. He was telling his son that even though they grew up in different periods of time, time has not changed that much. They both still have to be concerned with the security of their bodies. This is a phrase that I really like. He uses the term “body” very leniently. When he is talking about his body, to an extent, he does not actually mean his physical body. The term “body” is referring to his whole existence.
Coates has a very special way of writing. It feels like every sentence he writes has a double meaning. To different people, his words can mean so many different things because he speaks in such general terms, making him quite relatable. When he says “Fail to comprehend the streets and you gave up your body now. But fail to comprehend the schools and you gave up your body later” (25), I think of how a lack of education means giving up my future and how a lack of connection with my culture and surroundings means giving up my present. Without any street smarts, you can easily be pushed over and run right out of existence by the world. I have been told this many times by my mother because apparently, I do lack street smarts. Apparently, I am “too nice” which sounds really dumb in my head because I have never considered myself nice. Anyways, the whole general idea of this is just to say that I am really glad that I have to read this book again. It really gives me the opportunity to really read it and since this is such a thought provoking book, it has made me think really hard about who I am.
I am so glad that you are enjoying reading this book this time! That is a very interesting system for reading in you AP class, and I feel like a lot of students would do exactly what you did, and procrastinate as long as possible.
ReplyDeleteI also am a very slow reader. Sometimes, in high school I also skimmed through a book because I didn't have the energy or time to actually read it. However, when I actually do read a book, it is so much better than just trying to understand the plot and what happens for an essay.
ReplyDeleteI am also a slow reader. In high school, I would normally attempt to skim the book but end up not really remembering anything, much like you described, and relying on Sparknotes and other summaries to hopefully catch me up enough for class. I feel as though when I read the summer reading, and had time to read the books, I understood them more. I enjoy reading books more when I have the time to read them and am not rushed.
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