In the Ted Talk, Jaqueline Woodson explains how reading led to writing. One of the reasons she gives for reading is that reading allows one to truly understand the work of the author and their story as a whole. Many people, such as her siblings, tend to read very quickly, but she claims that reading slowly and taking it all in is when you discover hidden or alternate meanings. One example would be the Giant story she talked about, where in her first reading of it, she saw the giant as selfish for not letting the children play in his garden. Over time, she began to read it slower and really understand it, and she realizes that the giant just wants to be understood. Another smaller reason she stated was that reading slowly really allows one to appreciate the author’s work and the time they put into the book. It is important to appreciate the author’s work, even if one doesn’t exactly like the story being told.

One of my favorite reading from this semester was “Hotel Corona.” Throughout the past 10 weeks, we’ve gone over many different topics, such as racial injustice, American individualism, and the Coronavirus. In Hotel Corona, it was nice to see people from different places and cultures come together as one, no matter what they identify as or with. The majority of the podcasts/articles we read were hard to take it, as they tackled very serious world issues, but this one stood out as it showed a bright side of things. Although there are so many issues in our current world, people seem to naturally get along and work together for the greater good, which is great to see. Overall, the readings this semester were very interesting, and very informative to things that are occurring in the world today.