My father is not in love with me or trying to take my hand

My step sibling wasn’t so mean until one day she turned on me

My friend is not a bird or a fish

I am not a princess or a girl in distress

I don’t sit back a wait for my fait to happen I took matters into my own hands

And though I was swept away it didn’t end in such a bad way

My name is Taylor Staas! I am from Wheatland, a small town about an hour and 15 minutes south of Chico, and love it there. I am a transfer student from Yuba Community College. I was at Yuba College for three years and graduated with an associate in social and behavioral science. This is my second semester at Chico State majoring in liberal studies and minoring in communication. When I become a teacher I hope to teach 2^nd – 4^th grade! This semester I am planning on volunteering with CAVE so I can continue to be a teacher aide for a classroom I was placed in last semester. I really enjoyed the teacher and the students and felt I was learning a lot from them for my future as a teacher, so that is why I am going to continue this semester. I also plan to rush this semester, I have always wanted to be in a sorority so I am going to try it out and see where it takes me.

According to reading “A puzzle to the rest of us”: Who is a “reader” anyway? People generally describe a reader as a person, “ who makes intertextual connections, who ask particular questions about the text, who reads a particular intellectual distance from the text, who talks about more than the text meaning, and analyzes its nature.” In my opinion a reader is someone who enjoys reading and does it on his or her free time. I would not see myself as a reader. I hate reading and do everything in my power to avoid it. I have always struggled with reading. It takes me a long time to read and understand anything; because I am constantly having to look up words I don’t understand and reread the text. It is very embarrassing so the only reading I ever do is ones required for school.

I took away a couple different things from Williams article. First that everyone has his or her own definition of things even if it is a simple word such as reader or not reader. Secondly it really opened my eyes to the fact that reading does go from something fun and rewarding in the younger grades to something torturous in the higher grades. It’s really sad that children’s’ passion for reading dies, as they get older for the most part. Lastly, I loved the activity in the article where the teacher had students draw their idea of a scientist, and did a lesson base off everyone different views of a scientist. Then Williams himself tweaked that project to help students gain a better understanding on the meaning of reading. I can see myself doing this activity with my students in the future. I wish that someone had shared the idea to me a lot earlier in life, that just because you are slow to read and understand doesn’t mean you are a bad reader. However, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to read this text now so I can pass it on when I become a teacher myself, and to any children who feel the way I do.