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Reading: A forgotten pastime; Writing: An occasionally enjoyable task

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Reading: A forgotten pastime; Writing: An occasionally enjoyable task

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Though I read and have read very little on my own recently (meaning the past few years), I actually read (and was read to) quite a bit when I was younger, such as in the first half of my elementary school years. Diary of a Wimpy Kid was a series that I loved, reading about ten or eleven of the books before I started to lose interest. The other primary book series I enjoyed as a kid, mainly because my dad would read the chapters to me, was the How to Train Your Dragon series. However, as I continued on to middle school and beyond, my interest in reading as a pastime dwindled and I thought of it more and more as an English assignment, occasionally finding a book that I liked—which is still a trend occurring today. As for writing, that had sort of a similar the effect, though not as drastic. I didn’t have any particularly strong feelings about writing when I was younger, though I don’t remember hating it, either. Once again, my feelings on writing soured as I entered middle school, but, depending on the topic (mainly if it was a topic discussing my thoughts on a certain idea), I might enjoy a writing assignment or essay from time to time—though I despised research papers.

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My relationship with reading and writing

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My relationship with reading and writing

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My connection with reading and writing could best be described as improving, if I had to choose. Naturally, I would presume that all kids have the same improvement in reading and writing abilities as they advance in their schooling. Reading has always been a love of mine, thus I consider my reading abilities to be quite advanced. Being the son of two Afghan parents, I do have a minor accent that occasionally gets in the way and makes reading a little difficult for me. The most of the time it's not a problem, only a few words that I either don't know how to pronounce correctly. Even with that setback I can still say that I am confident in my reading skills, reading at a well speed, improving, reading various books all that combined allows to be able to read almost anything. What I do enjoy about reading is that I see it being able to bring myself into that world that the author is writing about or to envision the story they’re telling as a movie.

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I'm not the biggest reading fan since I tend to lose track/keep up with the plot, but I have gotten better with that. Last year during my senior year I read 6 novels from start to finish not only because I had to for class, but because I enjoyed reading the books that I received. I use to have a negative relationship with reading however I'm starting to like it more slowly but surely. The types of books that I like to read are based on true stories. My favorite book is The Weight of Zero by Karen Fortunati. When I was younger I tried to strengthen my passion for reading by buying sequels at the store, but that didn't work since I didn't finish any of the books. On the other hand, writing is something that I've always liked better since I'm able to share my voice in some way. I also struggled with writing in the past, but I started to improve especially in high school. I still struggle with some things like grammar and structuring what I want to incorporate into my writing. I would say that my relationship with writing is positive because I've always liked it. One of my favorite writing pieces is an identity essay that I composed for my college composition class last year. That allowed me to share my story and the events that led me to be the individual I am today. While writing that essay I also started to discover some new things about myself that I didn't notice before.

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The relationship between reading and me is pretty positive. Since I was little, I have loved to read books.My aunt gave my brother and I a set of books like Grimms' Fairy Tales, Andersen's Fairy Tales, etc., and I read them everyday after I came home from kindergarten. After I went to elementary school, there was a library full of story books. I stayed there almost everyday after school until my mom came to pick me up. Later, I went to junior high school, and the library was larger and there were more kinds of different books. I started to borrow books from the library: sometimes novels, sometimes science books. Since then, I started to read more and more different kinds of books. Now, my favorite kind of book is novels, I still read them in my free time.

On the other hand, my relationship with writing is not positive but not negative. I think it is more like a tool for me. When I was in kindergarten, my teacher started to tell us to write weekly diaries, and we can put whatever we want to say in it; it just needed to be one or two sentences. At that time, I thought writing was interesting since I could express anything I wanted. Later, in elementary school, my teachers started to assign essays. Since they often add a lot of limitations to the assignment, I started to dislike writing, and thought writing was very difficult. Now, since there is social media, I write every day: sometimes sharing my thoughts, sometimes chatting with my friends online. Writing become a convenient tool for me to communicate with people even if they are not at the same place, in the same time zone with me.

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In the past I was an extremely active reader. Before I had technology like a phone or computer, books were the main form of entertainment I had access to. I was reading huge novel series like Percy Jackson, Hunger Games, and Harry Potter. I remember viewing reading as a sort of challenge. "Read ___ many pages a day," was my style. It was one of the ways I practiced goal setting and time management. For a time I enjoyed it, but I eventually had to deal with things like summer school and sports. Since I didn't have the free time anymore to get much reading done, I lost interest in the subject. Now the most I would read was the required books for my English class.

As for my writing, I would say that the complete opposite happened. Some of my middle school English teachers gave me a bad impression of the subject, primarily because of all the "requirements" I had to follow in order to submit papers. Writing became more of a chore, and I began to develop a quantity over quality mindset. But in high school, I had a few teachers who helped to disestablish the norms I was used to. Being able to write more freely about the books we were reading was a thrilling new experience for me, and it may have also brought a small amount of excitement back into reading as well. I've recently found that I have a passion for writing science fiction narratives. I prefer using digital programs like pages or google docs to write, as it is useful for checking my spelling and grammar, as well as organizing my paper.

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Right now I am trying to make my relationship with reading stronger because I feel like it is a good skill to have and once I start doing it I enjoy it. I was trying to read a lot more during the summer because I knew that college would be a lot of reading and I was trying to get into the habit of doing it. At the moment I am enjoying reading more nonfiction than fiction because I like thinking about the important topics especially if they relate to my life. I try to bring a bag with me to places now because I think it is helpful to always have a book because sometimes I will get stuck somewhere where there is no wifi so I can’t be on my phone.
I think that my relationship with writing is worse than reading because writing always feels like a chore for me and can be overwhelming. I don’t usually write anything that's not for school or an assignment because I tend to find it more difficult and sometimes boring. If I write, it is in a notebook I have which includes lists of ideas or things I want to change.

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As of recently, most of my reading has been reading social media posts and texts. As school started up again, more and more reading became reading canvas assignments and lots of additional information about my classes. I used to be addicted to reading books when I was younger but now, not so much. I probably stopped reading because newer books that came about didn't seem that interesting to me or I just found other things to do, or maybe even a mix of both. I also started associated reading more to school and less of a free time activity.

In terms of writing, I haven't liked it all that much. For most of my essays, I always felt like I wasn't articulating well enough. I definitely liked writing when I knew exactly what I was writing about and how, but then again, who doesn't like feeling like they know what they're doing? I have mostly written essays and homework assignments, but I guess texting also counts as writing. Ever since writing online essays, googles docs has been my go-to and it at least makes writing a little bit more manageable.

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My Relationship with Reading and Writing

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My Relationship with Reading and Writing

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Reading is usually enjoyable for me if I am interested in the subject that the text is about. For example, a book or article about the geographical history of California is something I would love to read because I find that kind of stuff interesting. The reading has to cater to my interests and hobbies for me to like it. A good hook can help with this. However, something that I don't care about and/or can't understand is pretty boring to me so I dread it.
Writing, on the other hand, is a bit different. It involves a lot more work and focus coming from me so I have to really be in to it to enjoy it. I have more negative associations with writing because I think of essays. Essays in middle and high school were never really that fun and I always struggled to write about something that I was remotely passionate about.

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My Relationship with Reading and Writing

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My Relationship with Reading and Writing

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I do not have a negative relationship with reading. When I was younger I definitely enjoyed reading more than I do now. Reading is something I wouldn't do in my free time now but it is something I definitely want to start doing. I use to read a lot of fictional books growing up. I want to start reading books that will help impact my life in a positive way. I want to read books that will help me create good habits and books that will help and improve mental health. Another thing I do like to read are articles that have to do with criminal cases. I am very interested in the reading about criminal cases because I find it fascinating that there are different and many factors that can cause a person to commit crime. A tool that I would use to help me read is the internet because I can search up a topic and find an article related to it. Another tool would be the library because I can check out books from there.

Writing is something I have always enjoyed and I have a positive relationship with it. I like to write out my thoughts and ideas from time to time. What I definitely do like to write are my goals and plans on how I am going to meet those goals. Another thing that I like to write about are essays for a class but that is really up to the topic and if I find it interesting. I use google docs to write out my essays for school. To write about my thoughts, ideas, plans, and goals I just use a journal and a pen.

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My struggles and benefits with reading and writing

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My struggles and benefits with reading and writing

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My relationship with reading is a love/hate, sometimes I can really enjoy it and other times I feel like it drags and is too much. I have fictional novel books which I bought, but I haven't gotten too far into them. I brought these books with me because I want to develop healthier reading habits so I have them with me. Sometimes it's just really hard to find the motivation to read because when I look at a book or article it really just looks like a lot of words. The easier books I read are manga, I really enjoy those because they include pictures so I can visualize what happens as I read, and when I look at it it looks like a lot less words. Usually when I have a really good interest in the book I'd be able to stay hooked in it. When I read actual books I like to have something to follow the words with, for example the eraser part of a pencil, a pen, a bookmark, etc because it helps me understand. If I read articles online on a computer I'll use the cursor to follow the words I'm reading, and depending if the reading is for school I'd annotate here and there.

As for my relationship with writing, I think it's actually something that I really enjoy because I get to kind of say whatever is running through my mind, like I am right now. Sometimes it's hard to think about what to write because my mind can go blank but I mostly enjoy writing, especially if I know what I want to write about. I usually write texts or things about my days, I think the most I will write will be for classes like writing essays or poems. As of now I don't really use any tools for writing, I kind of just fix whatever mistakes I have that are pointed out from google docs when I work on my assignments.

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My current relationship with reading right now is pretty positive. I have always enjoyed reading and I like reading all sorts of books, but a personal favorite of mine lately has been mysteries/thrillers. As much as I like reading, though, I have been so busy lately that I have been in a reading slump and can't find much time to read in my free time. I had a lot more time to read over quarantine, and that was mainly where my love for books was at its peak. I read physical copies of books rather than reading online because I find it harder to stay focused when reading off of a screen for some reason.
I have an opposite feeling towards writing, where my relationship with writing is more on the negative side. I've never really enjoyed writing, and often found it hard to write when I'm not passionate about the topic. I think this negative perspective has come mainly from feeling so restricted with what we were allowed to write about in high school and elementary, and the strict guidelines made it unenjoyable. I have now been hearing a lot more about how writing is a lot more free and has less restrictions in college, which can hopefully change my relationship with writing from a negative one to a positive one.

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My Relationship with Reading and Writing 

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My Relationship with Reading and Writing 

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I have a current positive relationship with reading. I grew from reading Judy B. Jones, Diary of the Wimpy Kid, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark to now reading thrillers, books that enhance my mental health, nonfiction, and creative biographies. Reading helps distract me from my current situations and it feels as if it takes me to another world where I can only see what I'm reading in the book. It helps expand my knowledge and it helps me spend time productively.

My current relationship with writing is positive as well. I grew up writing short creative stories and poems to now writing journal entries, letters for loved one, rhetorical analysis, and reflection essays. The essays are assigned to me so I must admit I only do them for that reason but they have helped me expanding my thinking which has allowed me to learn different things regarding the topic I am writing on. Not including the assignments, journal entries and letters have helped me feel liberated from all my problems and even though I'm pouring myself out on a piece of paper, I feel less weight on my shoulders. In short terms, writing helps me distress and it enhances my mental health. The tools I use when necessary in my writing include autocorrect on my laptop, dictionaries, and thesauruses.

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When I was younger, I was strongly opposed to reading. I think it was due to the fact that I was not a very suitable reader at the time. As I grew up, I understood that there was more to just reading words in a passage; you have to comprehend and create ideas as you persist throughout the sentences. As of now, I would say my relationship with reading is mainly neutral but also somewhat positive. I tend to read books that are about self-improvement and want to get into more genres in time. I tend to use physical copies of texts since online passages don't give me the same feeling when I read something material. For writing, I have a love-hate relationship. I tend to enjoy writing during specific times, which are typically impulsive, yet most of the time, I would rather speak. When I write, my phone or computer are the devices where I do the most.

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My Current Relationship with Reading and Writing

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My Current Relationship with Reading and Writing

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I only enjoy reading fiction novels, because there is always something happening in them that makes me want to keep reading. On the contrary, I don't like reading news or informational articles, because they are very boring and make me want to go to sleep. I can read for hours if I am invested in the plot of a novel. But, I can't hold concentration on an informational piece. I like to just sit on a couch and read, because it just gets me into the mood to read.

I never felt good at writing, because I never felt accomplished when finishing an essay. Writing just felt like a chore I had to do for school, that I just wanted to get over as quickly as possible. Doing the bare minimum for an A in the class. Using paper and pencil to write an essay is a large pain in the side, so typing makes everything so much easier to collect my thoughts and finish the paper.

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My Changing Relationship with Reading and Writing

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My Changing Relationship with Reading and Writing

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Right now, my relationship with reading is kind of positive. For the most part when I was growing up, I would say that I associated reading with more of a negative aspect, although there were occasionally a couple of books that I really enjoyed. In more recent years, I've been able to take classes that allow for me to be able to read more fictional things which has bolstered my view point of reading to something more positive. For reading, I really enjoy reading light fictional novels, occasionally there will be a book that is so jam packed with plot twists and captivating language that I will also enjoy reading those. When these types of books were assigned in my English classes, those were the times where I found myself actually enjoying reading. For some books, I really enjoy using audio readings one can find online.

I feel like my relationship with writing may be a tad worse than my relationship with reading. However, both my outlooks on reading and writing has followed a similar path where I have grown to enjoy them more and have a more positive outlook as I take classes that allow for more fictional and creative things to be made. I primarily only write when assignments are assigned in class which tend to be analysis essays. Though, I find writing fictional stories to be very fun whenever they are assigned. I use the internet a lot to help me write because I often forget how to spell a word or need to look up a word that is better able to get my point across.

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Reading & Writing: My Least Favorite Things

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Reading & Writing: My Least Favorite Things

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I wouldn't say I have a negative relationship with reading, but it's just something I wouldn't do in my free time. I am fully aware that I should put in more effort to read books, but I find more joy in other things such as playing sports, going for a walk outside to appreciate nature, watching videos, listening to music, and more. Besides the readings I am assigned for class, you'll most likely just find me reading texts I receive, people's Instagram captions & stories, tweets, and even some soccer articles about the Premier League. On very rare occasions, you'll find me reading an actual book about horses, or a Colleen Hoover book that my sister wanted me to read. When I read, I like to use audiobooks so that I stay focused on the reading, as well as, pace myself better so that I don't take too long to finish the reading. As for writing, I have a similar relationship. It's not that I dislike writing. It's just that it's not something you'd see me indulge in during my free time. The only writing I dislike are assignments and essays for class, but it also depends on the topic I'm writing about. For example, writing something simple such as this is pretty fun. Again, I really only write for class, but now you may see me writing letters that I will send to my friends because I miss them. When I write, I use Grammarly because it helps correct my grammar and spelling. It even helps me with word choice.

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My Relationship with Reading and Writing

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My Relationship with Reading and Writing

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I would say I currently have a positive relationship with reading. Most of the time, I enjoy reading because I could always learn new things and feel connected from the reading. I like to read short novels and poems at night, and sometimes I would read e-books on WeChat Reader on my phone on the subway. I would underline or make annotations in the book if I find some sentences interesting, surprised, or any feelings. Though it's easier to read online, I still like to read paper books because I love the feeling of holding a book, which could let me calm down and really start to read.

My current relationship with writing is both negative and positive. It's negative when I do my writing assignments because it's a little stressful and less enjoyable. Most of my writing assignments are done by computer, and I would use Grammarly to make them better. It's positive when I want to write something, such as my emotions, my life, or my plan. I could get to know myself better by turning emotions into literary words. I usually write these in Memo on my phone.

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As of right now, I currently have a positive relationship with reading because I find it very relaxing to read in my free time and it helps me release all the tension that was built up throughout the day. And, the things that I usually read are visual novels, manga, light novel, etc. There's a lot more but I can't remember them at the top of my head and in terms of genre, I'm into action, dark fantasy, and romance. Since I'm reading leisurely I don't use any tools at all to annotate or decipher the text any further as I find it very distracting to be using those tools while reading for enjoyment.

My current relationship with writing as of right now is mixed because on one hand, writing without any structure or a fixed guideline is very fun and relaxing. But writing for an assignment that requires you to follow a fixed structure or a guideline is very irritating and tiresome because my thoughts are limited inside of a box. The things that I usually write are essays for an assignment because that's what I've been doing for the past 18 years of my life. One tool that I use occasionally is Grammarly because I want to make sure my spelling is correct and my grammar is fluid in my writing.

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Write your own post (at least 150 words with a revealing title and multimedia component) that responds to these two questions:

1. What is your relationship with reading right now? (Do you have positive or negative associations?) What kinds of things do you read? What kinds of tools do you use?

2. What is your relationship with writing right now? (Do you have positive or negative associations?) What kinds of things do you write? What kinds of tools do you use?