Hello! I am julenejenson903 I am 17 years old and my life is consumed with school work, and my least favorite assignment for a while was reading. When I was younger, I loved reading and everything that came with it; escaping into another world and leaving behind the harsh world we live in. Some of my favorites book series were the Junie B. Jones and the Magic Treehouse series. I liked to think of myself as Junie B. Jones, to the point my mother even called me “Junie B.” I was someone who even read whole books in a day. I took pride in my reading, my parents praised me, and others loathed me. When I reached middle school, the work did become more intense but I still enjoyed what I read. I was starting to read a little less, but my appreciation for literature remained high. When I entered high school, the work became a lot more difficult and there was a lot more on my plate. For that reason, I started to become the person that read because they had to. With the school work, clubs, and volunteer work that I had to juggle, it was really hard for me to read for pleasure anymore. And school drove my burning passion to slowly extinguish. I was no longer reading because I thought the books were good, I was reading because I had assignments that needed to be completed.
In the past year, I began to realize my wrong ways. I began to think about how hard some of these authors work to put their works together. The person that I became is not who I want to be, I want to learn to love books again. I hope that we can work together to make teenagers love reading again. I know that I am not perfect and I still have a long way to go, so let’s take this first step together.
Your blog is really cute. I feel as though I can relate really well to your blog post. When I was younger I had the whole Junie B Jones collection and read at least three of them a day. When we are younger books were shorter, barely had a meaning behind it, and was interesting to the simple mind. As we grow older we find time for different things and rarely have time to read. That's what I feel as though you were saying but in an interesting ways. What kind of reader do you think you can be even if you do not like to read?
ReplyDeleteI can certainly relate to the pressures that growing up brings and how high school can make reading for pleasure not only a struggle, but also a burden. I really love how you've turned this blog from an assignment from your english class into a goal that many people can relate to: making time for pleasure reading and appreciating the effort authors put into their work. I really look forward to seeing what books you read and what you have to say about them.
ReplyDeleteI shared a similar experience with Kincaid, Anthony and you. When I was little, novels and short stories led me to an imaginative world, where I could accompany the characters into their adventures and conflict. However, large amount of school work becomes an obstacle for me to enjoy reading. My experience with reading can relate to one of the graphics you have in the post, which stated, “The first step is the toughest one”. To me, reading an independent book is the first step that I need take to improve my diction and writing and to enjoy interesting stories, and it is difficult for me since I haven’t read book that is not assigned for years.
ReplyDeleteI can relate so much to your experience. I feel as though kids of today really have lost their love of reading. But I can't help but wonder...why? Is it the fact that technology has taken the place of novels? Is it that we are forced to read so often in school that we begin to read for a grade rather than personal development? Or could it be a manifestation of both? Or something entirely different? Either way, I'm taking this journey right along with you, to somehow learn to love reading again. I think you're putting out a good message and I can't wait to read more!
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