A Story on Discovering Awe in Reading

Now that I have what I am going to call a final draft of my paper, let me tell you about the journey.

The idea originally started when a discussion was brought up in my reading class about becoming a reader and all of the surrounding discussion. 

That sparked this post in which I explore what I thought the connection between reading and wonder may be 

Around this time, I read Louise Rosenblatt's work on  which kept me thinking in this direction and gave me more foundation things to draw on  

Finally I started tying all of my ideas together in my notecard assignment 

Interestingly, I have my own personal experience in there which I eventually come back to as a vital part of the direction I went 

Around this time, I also curated a list of ways people can get back into reading. This is also interesting because the focus of this list happened to be a major focus of my paper as well 

There for a while I was really lost with what direction to take

English Journal Vetted

Venue Research and Reading Report
I looked at pieces from the Continuous Becoming: Moving toward Mastery column of the English Journal. The English Journal has columns on certain topics that they run and I feel that my piece fits into the theme well. I could actually only find two pieces, so I am not sure if it is a newer column or something that they don't get a lot of submissions to.

Call for Papers and Dates (for submission, and for event/publication)
They accept submissions to the column year round. This is good because I felt like ti was easier to tailor my paper to rather than looking at a narrow topic.

Topic
I interpreted the call to be anything that helps teachers to become better teachers. With that, I geared my paper towards how teachers and how I have reawakened awe in my reading.

Length
The word count is 1200-2000. My paper is a little long; and after looking at the submissions, that is good I think because I could easily cut things that wouldn't work with the column like some of my discussion on efferent vs aesthetic.

Formatting
Some pieces seem to have in text citations where others do not. All of the articles do have sub headings breaking everything up.

Tone & Rhetorical Approach
I am actually glad I had looked at articles from the English Journal before and was familiar with the tone because everything takes a very personal tone. The whole point is how you have worked out things and sharing your experiences with other teachers. This is something that I worked into my paper and the approach I took from pretty much the beginning. I reworked my first two paragraphs to fit and they could perhaps use more work.

Social Media
NCTE does have social media accounts. They seem to just be doing a lot of reposting. I think the right approach would be to look up specific people. There is a weekly #NCTEchat, but I don't know if it would be rude to interrupt.

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After classes today, I actually think the Utah CTE Journal would probably be a better approach. Or maybe not better but alternative. It is reviewed and edited by BYU students often and all of our professors coordinate it. Not that the actual English Journal isn't an option, the Utah journal is a little less strict, has less submissions, take more of what they can get sort of thing I think.


I still think my paper is a good fit for the article above, I just realize I am a preservice teacher and don't know how that would look to them when they want teachers. Perhaps I would need to wait to submit until say I sign papers with my district and then I am legit hahah I also think my paper could be strengthen for the venues by having real world experience as related to teaching to write in


HUZZAHH!

Reading + Awe Finished Draft! Finally!

I have "finished"!!!!!

I can't tell you my relief right now. Even though all last night while I was working on it how much I feel like my paper is flawed and horrible.

I think I should have picked a different topic from the beginning. Maybe something more focused and grounded on specific literature.

I think that it would have been helpful if most of our study would have been focused in literature and how awe was evoked in literature rather than definitions of awe. That would have given the right focus for our papers and made it easier.

Yes.

Here is my target audience:

English Journal Columns: Continuous Becoming: Moving toward Mastery 

Editors: Victoria P. Hankey and Dawn L. Ryan

Mastery in teaching is not a destination; it is a principle that guides professionals toward continuous improvement. Good teaching is never static. In this dynamic profession, educators are responsible for meeting the needs of students whose futures are yet to be defined. The best teachers never stop being students themselves, and each teacher’s professional journey is unique. The common thread is the guidance we can offer one another.
        Learning to teach well begins with the desire to make a difference for students. That desire often gets lost in the realities of classroom life. There is no roadmap to mastery.
        This column invites novices, veterans, and everyone in between to share significant experiences that have enhanced their craft. What has made you a better teacher? How do you stay invested? How do you project professionalism in this era of high scrutiny? What professional options exist for growth, leadership, and advancement in education? How do you cultivate relationships to obtain the support you need?
        The goal is to offer suggestions, ideas, and experiences to help teachers discover their own roadmaps toward mastery.
        Please send submissions of 1,200–2,000 words to Victoria.Hankey@bvsd.org. Inquiries and suggestions for future columns are also welcome.

While I know my paper is way far from perfect and really quite horrible in my mind.
I am glad that I figured it out and found and end for it
Because there for a while I was just not going to finish it

Here it is! 

I also have the intentions that it will be edited and revised over the next week too. So that should help!

Social Proof on Reading

So I met with Sirpa yesterday to discuss my paper.

I think it went well.
If anything, she gave me my "Sirpa fix" and reassured my that all was well with the world and I would survive haha

She helped me clarify what that I am looking at with the specific connection of reading beauty and the specific feeling of deep thought and being carried away.
She also told me that I should look into Schopenhauer because he lines up with what I am looking at
Then she gave me two books:
Anna Quindlen: How Reading Changed My Life
Nancy M Malone: Walking a Literary Labyrinth 
And then she showed me a bunch of other cool books that would be interesting if I were looking for long related reads or had more time.

I also got in touch with Dr Coombs about discussing my paper with her
Her class and a discussion we had is actually the one that inspired this paper
I may meet with her next week... we will see

GO TEAM!

On Reading 0.4

Well I feel like my "paper" has really gone the rounds
back and forth, up and down

I think having a clearer idea and direction in the beginning would have been helpful
to save all this changing
but now I think I have a pretty good working idea and outline

I took the feedback of finding more authentic awe with my topic
and have gone in the direction of holding to that awe

It came from the idea of audiobooks
and originally finding "awe" in reading
it is also reminiscent of my curated digital awe with reading post

I took how I have found awe in reading
and how I have accomplished it
since I am targeting people who were in my situation
and gone off that

working paper as of now HERE

Audiences on Reading

I suppose I should have worked on this after tomorrow

Because I plan on working on my paper tomorrow

which could guide where I post....

But with my current idea

I would like to target people who used to be really into reading

or considered themselves readers at one point

and now have faltered

Conference:

Perhaps some one has a good recommendation for this. 

I think that the English Symposium would actually be really fitting for this. 

Perhaps UCTE/LA would also be good. I think that I attended a panel similar to what I am thinking last year

Journal:

The English Journal's "Speak My Mind" section might be good for this. 

Again, perhaps someone knows of a good outlet that college students may read?

Maybe one of the many campus publications 

Alternative:

I think that the GoodReads blog would be a really cool place to be published. 

There are also tons of blogs talking about reading

However, I think that BuzzFeed typeish site perhaps would be a better source for the people I am trying to target. ie 5 ways to get back into reading 

Social Proof and Homies along the way:

I think that we have some really good reading specialist in our department namely Dr. Grierson and Dr. Coombs. I think that there are also some good professors in the McKay school. 

There are a lot of communities on G+ about reading and literacy and maybe librarians would be an interesting direction 

I have quite a few friends interested and passionate about reading who would give great input 

How about it! I would love input as always but especially on those things noted above 

Reading Portraits 0.3 with a Personal Touch

First off, I am getting this up early. because English Symposium.

Second, I wanted to do a self portrait
but all the madness means I haven't had time to look nice enough
that I actually want to take a picture of myself.

Thus I present an old photo from a model shoot I did with Emily London Portraits
dubbed over with why I read

and unless I am simplifying things too much
this is one of the reasons why I think reading = awe

With the shift of my paper to how we can reintroduce the awe and wonder found in reading
do I need to shift my project too?

On Reading 0.3

Well. I have been putting off writing my paper because I don't know how to make it "authentic."
I think I could make the argument that I don't know how "authentic" a lot of our subjects are
and that a lot of them would not exist if it weren't for the theme
I mean isn't that the point of a theme? giving us a theme? haha
but I will leave it at this

I went towards a revamp of making my paper more connected
and not just calling things awe just because that is the class

I mean I really do believe that the act of reading creates awe

and perhaps I just went in a circle with what I did
and I'm exactly where I was

I feel more tied down though?
like I have more of a direction and clear argument?

You can see my new working paper below or in this doc as the embedding is funky



Let me know what you think, please!

Reading Biblio

What's Next?

Perhaps I should start with what is next because I think that is what is the next step for me. I need to start writing. I need to start forming ideas and really start going at it. It is hard for me to put down all these sources with the intention that I really just need to start writing so that I know what I have and what I need. As I started nailing down sources, I still need to make sure everything stays with awe. I need to make sure my end means connect with the beginning means of awe. I also need to find other sources probably more specifically about reading and awe separately. Most of all, I just need to find some motivation. I'm feeling there only being 18 more days of my undergraduate career. 

Annotated Bibliography 

Atwell, Nancie. The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers. New York: Scholastic, 2007. Print. 

Nancie discusses how she gets student into reading. The most helpful parts are where she defines reading and more specifically defines the “reading zone.”

Belluck, Pam. "For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little Chekhov." The New York Times. The New York Times, 3 Oct. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. <http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/i-know-how-youre-feeling-i-read-chekhov/>.

Discusses the connecting power of reading. Reading can open your mind to other situations and help you to understand and feel for others.

Birkerts, Sven. "Reading and Depth of Field." Philosophy and Literature 1996: 122-9. Print.

Discusses the “interior space” that we make when we read. Also discusses some of what Coleridge has said about reading.

Treatment: back to where I started with reading

I have this struggle.
As does, I think, the entire class

How can we write on something about awe
when the definition of awe is so unclear
and so skewed
and so personal ?

I look at other people's projects and think
how is that awe? how are you defining awe?

so with my treatment, I took a couple steps back with what I was thinking

I think my biggest problem was that I was equating reading to awe
and this was just a flat "here it is"
where I think it needs to hold a larger part as my argument
and that it will help give me some direction

So instead, I am stepping back and making it a larger part of my paper
and premise
working towards how I am defining awe

because I think that may help to fix my issues of feeling so lost

Portraits Prototype

I did a quick photoshoot with my sister to get some prototype pictures for a portrait series
afterwards I just asked her some questions

first I asked "why do you like reading"

this was her response:

Connecting People Reading to Others

For my project, I have the idea of collecting a bunch of people's experiences with reading
and then sharing a bunch of people's experiences with reading

I took Dr Thursby's Folklore class a couple semesters back it
and this reminds me of the big project for that class
where you collect a bunch of stories or folkloric artifacts with a theme

My thought was to then publish them is some sort of interesting way

Writing Towards Reading's Awe

I spent most of my day collecting thoughts on reading
Specifically on reading as a healing and connecting source
I just did a little bit of brainstorming
and more found a lot of people who are talking about the same things
(woah bibliotherapy)

You can see what I have below or in this doc as the embedding is funny



What did I learn?
Putting together a paper not based straight in literature is hard for me.
I should have picked something more rooted in literature

Sharing the Power of Reading

"research a handful of venues (about six)" wait... wouldn't that be five?

Right now I am leaning towards look at reading and how the awe is healing. Here are some possible venues:

Awe Through Experience

Reader-response theory looks at the reader's experience with a piece of literature and how the reader creates meaning with the text.

Louise Rosenblatt looked at reading as a transaction between the reader and the text. Because there are million of readers all with an individual experience, there are potentially millions of individual works. Texts remains abstract symbols until the reader transforms them into meaning. The reader then draws on past experience "to shape the new experience on the page." The reader and the text then under go a tug of war each being effected by the reader's experience and what the text has to offer and ultimately creating new meaning individualized to and originating in the reader. This is why a text can have different effects on us at different times in our lives and why the meaning of the text will be dependent on the reader's experiences. Without a sure understanding of the reader and his experiences, one would not know how the text would effect him.

Connections in Awe

I have been interested in looking at how Emily Dickinson approaches awe

In "Just lost, when I was saved!"

Emily is looking at an encounter with death

In this poem, she almost dies

yet decides to return to earth

Reflections On Memoirs and Our Connection to Them For Cara

Some more interesting things:

 This book. " In Memoir Revolution, Waxler shows how memoirs link us to the ancient, pervasive system of thought called The Story. By translating our lives into this form, we reveal the meaning and purpose that eludes us when we view ourselves through the lens of memory. And when we share these stories, we create mutual understanding, as well."

  This author reflects on why she is drawn to memoirs

  Memoir Philosophy a look at how memiors bridge past present and future and families

 It also may be interesting to look into the six word memoirs

Digital Awe (Reading)

As of right now, my project is focused around this idea of becoming a reading
It is kind of interesting because I feel like the digital age has brought reading to such a new level making it easier to get into reading yet people are reading less
I think that there are some things that have really done great things for reading and reviving reading though
but also some that have probably hurt it.

Bear with me. I really struggled putting this list together
(now I actually really want to curate a list on curation but this is too far in the works)
My husband and I had a discussion about how anything digital can be awe anymore
It is so ingrained and that is also coming from people who live and breathe the digital
(although I am pretty sure he posted on Facebook a while back about how
it was amazing to think "20 terabytes? I don't have enough storage.")
but some of these things may not seem that new --or to me they didnt. just kinda old news
but I think they hold an important role in the amazing tools for reading in the digital age

The Bonds of Awe that Make Readers

+Paul  told me an interesting statistic that 1/4 adults last year didn't read a single book.

Becoming a Reader

I placed a feeler question on Google + to get some ideas about my topic:

I think that reading creates wonder (obviously because we are in a class all about it)
and I also think that there are specifics that keep us coming back
ultimately turning us from a  non reader to a reader

I have looked through a lot of teaching blogs that just say 

"Get them to read"

I took this to mean you just have to read a book and then you will be hooked

which I disagree with