Watch the video lecture and start reading the book.
COMMENT: How hard is the book? Did the suggestions in the video help at all? What else should be mentioned to help readers approaching this text?
REPLY: what suggestion in the comments do you agree or disagree with?
Before watching this video I had no clue what the book was telling me. When I read this book slowly and took the time to think about each line I kind of understood the book a little more. I feel like while approaching this text we should also make little notes after each paragraph.
ReplyDeleteI agree that making notes at the end of each paragrah would help. Especially with a book that is a little difficult to understand. I believe that if we take note at the end of each paragraph it would definitely help with our ability to grasp the text more.
DeleteHi Annie I agree with your comment. In order to have a good understanding of the book one must take notes and reread the text. This worked for me as well. I also take notes next to the paragraph and I also summarize the chapter.
DeleteHi, yes writing notes would definitely help to understand the text so I totally agree. Great idea!
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ReplyDeleteI don't think that the book is too difficult to understand as long as one takes the time to read each line carefully to gain a full understanding of what is going on (as stated in the video). It can be easy to get confused while reading this book in particular if not sure of what took place in the last paragraph. I found myself rereading certain lines or even entire paragraphs just to make sure that I got the full gist of what was going on in the text and that actually helped me alot to be honest. I think it could be helpful to write down things that really stood out while reading the text and jot down what we feel or what we think about it so that it can help us to remember points made as well as understand what is going on in the text.
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DeleteI agree, I would understand the paragraph much better when I'd read it for the second time. Some of the more difficult parts I'd read aloud and I'd actually understand it best that way.
DeleteI agree the reading becomes exponentially easier when you read it slowly. The writing itself also makes it a bit hard to follow, since it feels like their aren't breaks in thought.
DeleteWriting things down is also a great idea, it's like shorthand for the book.
I don't think the book is very difficult. I just had to read slowly and make notes. I also found myself rereading lines and paragraph to fully comprehend what I'm reading. In addition at the end of the chapters I wrote a summary of what I read and my understanding. The video was also very helpful with suggestions on how to read the book .
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DeleteI did the same with the end of the chapter summaries. I think it helps to putt the text into our own words. I was better able to understand the text after writing a summary.
I did not find the first reading challenging. The video introduction lecture was helpful. As stated in the video, readers must take time to understand each line. This is exactly what I did and after I read it, I put it into my own words and noted any importance.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, there are some words I did not understand. I did a quick search for the words I never heard. This then allowed me to understand better.
As I started reading the book after I listened to the lecture, I noted the points from the video lecture and followed them. I didn't find the reading very difficult. I read each line very carefully and bit slowly trying to comprehend the meaning/message. I even underlined few important sentences that I thought were significant. The lecture video really helped me reading through the book.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in terms of underlining important sentences or phrases, as I did the same the thing. I found that underlining these important lines allowed me to understand the text better and the main points that were behind it.
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ReplyDeleteI would have to say this is a very difficult book. It is a very uncommon and unique style of writing. The video helped a lot. Since I had seen the video first, I instantly understood when Geremio's thoughts, dialogue and description of the job would all be mixed together without any markings of the end of one and the beginning of the other. I think it would have been harder for me to understand this if I hadn't seen the video.
ReplyDeleteSomething we can do to make reading the book easier to understand is that after every chapter we should take a moment to think about the main event or point of it, the reason it was written as a seperate chapter and keeping only that conclusion or main idea in mind we should move on to the next. Also the parts that have been written all mixed together, I think can be understood better when read aloud.
I do agree about the aspect of the writing style being unique and it could be tough to confront at first but I think that the verbiage is not too difficult to grasp. I believe that addressing the main points and conclusion after every chapter will help better process the information and make it easier to organize the thoughts the author is trying to get across.
DeleteI agree the video helped me understand the dialogue and the mindset of the characters. I also agree that reading the book at once made it a little harder to keep up. I think discussing the book at least mid-way would've helped me understand it better.
DeleteI listened to the lecture before reading the book and it really helped me better understand how to go about reading it. I think it is very important to read slowly and find the rhythm in which it is written. I do not think it is so difficult but probably because of this lecture. I think it would help people to summarize the chapter after it is read or to make a quick post-it summary after every couple of pages.
ReplyDeleteI watched the lecture twice before and after reading the book, I had to annotate after every paragraph which helped me a lot. I read it word for word and summarized after the chapter.
ReplyDeleteI didn't find the verbiage used difficult or hard to follow but I did find myself rereading paragraphs because there was information I needed to understand the context of what was happening. Unfortunately I read the book before watching the lecture but I definitely plan on taking side notes while reading to help in finding a rhythm. I can also do a short summary after every chapter in order to better organize my thoughts and follow the story more appropriately and thoroughly.
ReplyDeleteThe lecture helped me to read the first book in a way that would make it easier for me to understand. The book doesn't fell too difficult when you take your time.
ReplyDeleteI definitely still struggle under certain passages, but it's easier when you say it out loud like the lecture says. In a way the book reminds me of Shakespeare where you can understand what's being said when you read it closely enough.
Before starting the book, I had expected the book to be much harder than it actually was. I expected the book to have difficult language and/or use grammatical tenses that are no longer used today. This book had a lot of linguistic jargon, which made the reading a little hard, as the main points were not specifically clear. The reason this book was ‘hard’ to read was because it required the reader to be able to pinpoint the main points on his or her own.
ReplyDeleteI watched the video clip after I had already read the book and noticed that some of the suggestions that were mentioned in the book I had already used on my own in my efforts to read this book. Additionally, it should be mentioned to help the readers approach the text that they should underline what they feel are important phrases as well as make side notes throughout the paragraphs. I found underlining and writing my own notes in the book allowed me to understand the text better and grasp the meaning more efficiently.
I definitely agree that underlining words in the book does help and helps you find important sections that are significant to remember.
DeleteI watched this video before reading the book and it helped me understand the reading a little more. The reading was a little challenging, so I began taking notes on the important events that took place in the book, and the details that were relevant to the plot.
ReplyDeleteI found the reading quite troubling at first and I needed to read over the texts a few times. With a few suggestions that were given in this video, it helped me get a little bit of an understanding. The main suggestion that was given that helped me understand the material was to read the book out loud. I always found that as a helpful tip in general, but was necessary for this book. Another suggestion that I thought was helpful was when the professor said in the video that the author many times speaks of the thoughts, feelings and conversations that happened with the characters. It is important to differentiate between each. A suggestion for what I had done was to google search some of the vocabulary because I didn't understand some of the words.
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