My reading experience is closely tied to my writing experience. This is so because I have a habit of reading relevant papers more often than any other piece of literature. Mine is a reading culture that revolves around the subjects that I take their research and referenced papers. This basically means that my reading is purely based on academic grounds. However, there are rare instances when I break the culture to pick up a sports magazine, newspaper or any relevant material. This is on rare occasion and I am thus usually reading my class text books.
I have taken time to try and read short stories. At times I get engrossed but sometimes the plot does not capture my interest. A good experience was when I tried one Shakespeare’s play “ The Merchant of Venice.” The original paper was very hard to understand and I had to look for a better translated version of the play. It turned out that the play was so interesting just as I had been told. I was even able to take attest on the play about the themes and character traits of the people in the play.
My reading experience has opened up my mind in many ways. It is through reading that I am able to learn to place the word appropriately in a text for it to make a perfect meaning and sense. Reading has allowed me to learn how to best punctuate English texts to avoid grammatical errors. Reading some texts has not come easy. I may be able to read the words but at times the message is hard to get. This can be due vocabulary and complex sentence structures. This sometimes led me to seek further assistance from class mates or to use the dictionary. A good example is a poem that we had to stuy that used ancient English. In the poem, the language did not flow and so did the ideas. The poem had very short stanzas and we were supposed to review each stanza to derive the overall message after reading the whole text. Because I had a hard time getting the message in each stanza, I couldn’t understand the overall message of the poem. Not even the dictionary had the answer to the meaning of such words. This created a very big problem for me.
In class, we were taught how to use certain techniques to derive the message. The techniques have helped me to be more comfortable with my reading. I no longer have the fear of picking up an article and not understanding anything from it. I am now more confident and able comprehend the message by using these techniques to get the message. I am now slowly transforming to reading other articles and materials even if they are not related to my field.
As mentioned earlier, my writing has basically been tied to my class work. It thus involves writing class assignments, coursework, many essays, class notes and term papers. Outside the class writing, I take my time to write a few random essays. This has really helped me to grow in my command of the English language. I am able to put my thoughts to paper and it gives me a lot of confidence.
A writing experience that comes to mind is when I had to write a fantasy essay. I was supposed to imagine a character that had to do some super human act. I was supposed to explain his movements in a familiar city and why he was there. I was also supposed to explain how he had found himself on this mission in addition to explaining his powers. This wwas supposed to be done in detail.
The essay presented a very big challenge for me because it involved a lot of creativity. One was supposed to come up with an imaginary character, give them special powers and then explain how they would use the powers to save the world. The imaginative phase was harder that I had earlier thought. It had looked like a typical imaginative essay but since it was a scientific fantasy essay, there were new rules to be followed. The writing phase was equally tasking. Putting the idea to paper brought with it a challenge. The story had to be very interesting to the reader in addition to flowing so easily that it would keep the reader engrossed. The grammar had to be graded and thus as I wrote the essay, I realized that the writing process requires a lot of planning and dedication.
In my free time, I have found it interesting to write imaginative compositions and the have the graded. I once wrote an essay on technology and formatted it in the right format. The topic of choice was due to my interest in technology. I took my time to write about the impact of mobile telephony to economy and the future. I submitted the paper on line and it got a good grade from the administrator of the website. They even pointed out the mistakes in my essay and advised me accordingly on how to punctuate and grammar check the paper. This greatly encouraged I continue writing essay so as to improve.
Conclusion
A lot of my writing and reading experiences can thus be narrowed down to class work. This is where I do the bulk of my language studies and thus the two are closely tied.