I don't know if any of you have painted an entire house inside and out but learning from personal experience this summer, I can say that it is not the most pleasant experience. Not only is it exhausting to do once, but then you have to go back and do it all over again once it dries to make sure no spots on the wall were missed.
While doing summer reading these past couple of weeks I realized that reading books such as the ones assigned is a lot like painting.You have to read a chapter and let it set in your mind for a while before you should go back and read it again to make sure no detail was missed. (A detail that could possibly ruin the whole thing for you) Much like a poorly painted room could make the whole house look off until it’s given another layer to bring the whole thing together.
On top of that, if you go back and paint a room without letting it set, the half-dried paint may stick to the fresh paint and peel the first layer away. This is very much similar to quickly rereading a chapter of a book, thinking about it too much and too quickly can ruin the original information stored in your brain.
The key to both of these processes is time and patience.
I have not painted my house inside and out, but I have painted my room. In the beginning, I had thought it would be quick and easy. However, I was wrong. I then became impatient and disappointed at the fact that the paint didn't turn out how I expected it. With patience, I learned that being patient and taking my time will lead to having a nicely painted room. As I read a book, I think it will be easy to breeze through, however, I make the realization that in order to grasp the book and its story I have to take my time.
ReplyDeleteThough I haven't painted an entire house, in and out, I have painted many sets for our school's plays and musicals for multiple days in a row and for many hours. And you're exactly right. Patience and time is how things can get done and going over things multiple times is a needed part of it. And if you miss a part, you can go through again and find what you've missed, if anything was missed.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting the way you connected reading with painting; I had never thought of it that way and its actually a great tip on digesting information better. I'm used to just reading something once and trying to remember each detail, but next time I'll try to get more coats in to let it really sink in.
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ReplyDeleteYour comparison between painting a house, and reading a book is intriguing to me, because the patience required to paint multiple coats is the same as the patience needed to read a complex novel. Just as chapters cannot be sped through, a house cannot be painted quickly, or it won't have a good end product. When reading a book that has many ideas, it is crucial to read carefully, so that the reader doesn't miss a main point. For example, if a student speeds through a book, and writes an essay based on what he/she understood while reading, they construct an essay similar to that of the house that was quickly painted. If they had read more thoroughly, the essay would have had more content connected to the book's main ideas, such as the house that was painted with patience had a greater end product.
ReplyDeleteI like your analogy on the two, and forgive me if I am going off subject, but you say that with reading you must have the time and the patience. But what if you don't have the time or the patience; in my case I don't have much time. I have lots of homework to do, so time is really not of the essence. But I wonder how you are able to read and re-read something? Maybe it is because I do not enjoy reading as much as you do.
ReplyDeleteTo really enjoy reading definitely helps with finding the patience to actively re-read a book or portion of a book to understand it. I myself prefer to avoid non-fiction books so I have to say it's not the easiest to find enough patience for reading more than once. However, throughout this homework process I've been given so much more insight into so many complex topics that I found whatever struggles I encountered to be worth it.
DeleteTime on the other hand is not always available like you mentioned above. That's not something anybody can help or give advice for. My summer has been quite busy as well (that being an understatement). My motivation for squeezing as much time for homework in as possible is coming from how much I want to be a part of this class. Everyone has different methods of getting things done.
This is such a creative way of thinking about reading and I'll be honest when I first read your post I really didn't understand the need to read a chapter over and over again. Well, not until I started reading the books. I, like I'm guessing most, don't read nonfiction books very often and once I began to read one of the assigned books it was a bit challenging grasping all the information and details that were just in the first chapter. So I read it a second time and as I finished reading it the second time I remembered of your post and I fully understood what you meant and truly appreciated your connection .(Sorry if this was a bit off topic I just felt like sharing)
ReplyDeleteThis is such a creative way of thinking about reading and I'll be honest when I first read your post I really didn't understand the need to read a chapter over and over again. Well, not until I started reading the books. I, like I'm guessing most, don't read nonfiction books very often and once I began to read one of the assigned books it was a bit challenging grasping all the information and details that were just in the first chapter. So I read it a second time and as I finished reading it the second time I remembered of your post and I fully understood what you meant and truly appreciated your connection .(Sorry if this was a bit off topic I just felt like sharing)
ReplyDeleteIt’s certainly interesting for me to see this very accurate representation of what it is like when you have to have the patience and time to reread and revisit specific places in a reading to truly understand the meaning and concept. Like Jennifer mentioned in the last comment, to most of us nonfiction is not usually on our go to list of reading, so when reading Postman's words, I definitely experienced trouble keeping focus on something that was difficult to understand with a simple first read. To actually comprehend these types of works, we must be dedicated with patience and time.
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