Blog 3 – Communal Reading and Voyant
In terms of my own reading, with Herland specifically, I find that my mind tries to find common themes throughout the text. Primarily with our current text, I look for the sociological concepts that are sprinkled throughout our reading. While doing this, I try to apply the social commentary given off by the reading to today’s society/ current ideals we have in modern culture. After our class discussion last Wednesday and hearing what everyone had annotated, I observed that we all seemed to take notice of the same situations and themes. There was a strong theme of male vs. female throughout our reading, which we all seemed to agree upon. We were all also very caught up on the oddity that was the cat and dog discussion towards the beginning of chapter 5. I think that this communal reading experience makes it easier to compare ideas with one another since you are able to see each other’s annotations. You are able to see someone else’s thought out ideas and opinions and can then compare them with how interpreted the text.
This seems easier than only having a discussion in which you have to remember what everyone else is constantly saying in order take part and keep up with what is being said. With the annotations and ideas in front of you, it’s easier to formulate and think about your responses in order to add to the discussion. Now that we have spent time reading Herland, I have the background and context that I wasn’t given when initially using Voyant to analyze the text. Voyant had simply given different aspects of the text such as words that come up frequently and other aspects. It wasn’t until we began to read the text that these different aspects began to click into place and make more sense. These were no longer random facts put into different formats. I now understand how each piece comes together to construct the story back into its original form. Honestly, I still have somes trouble navigating through Voyant. But, something that I did find intriguing by using Voyant that I wouldn’ have realized by only using the physical copy as a reference were how many times certain words or names came up within the story. For instance, the name Terry comes up an astounding number of times when the text is analyzed using Voyant. This leads me to believe that Terry is someone who is meant to be somewhat of a focal point throughout the story, instead of simply a side character. This point may have been less clear if I had been making observation solely based on the physical text alone. I am going to keep playing around with Voyant more since it is still somewhat hard for me to navigate. I think there may just be so many aspects to it that I get confused when trying to take in all of the information it is providing. I would like to get familiar enough with Voyant so that I find it to be helpful with the reading experience instead of mostly confusing.
4 Comments
laujack
I noticed in reading through annotation studio as well that all of us noticed similar themes and scenes. Also with your educational background you point out things that I may not even realize. That is why I do find communal reading helpful. I also have times when there are class discussions and by the next class I have forgotten what was even discussed. So being able to look over and go back to the annotations helped me to delve into others’ thoughts and think critically about my own. It does help me to come prepared to class and add to discussion without being redundant. I appreciate your determination with Voyant. Annotation definitely came easier to me, however I did find Voyant to help me notice things I wouldn’t have otherwise. Specifically Terry being used in the text so much even though he is actually not the main character. I think for me I want to place other texts in Voyant that I have already read and see if I notice any knew information or insight through the information provided.
cmorone
I like the communal reading for the same reasons as you – to compare my annotations to others, discovering things I may have missed. Moreover, Voyant and Annotation Studio together help us to better understand the text, in their own separate ways. I like that you mentioned how Terry is mentioned so many times throughout the text, because I am still waiting for something (anything) to happen with him. I can thank Voyant for my heightened attention (paranoia?) towards Terry.
kcookso
I think I will also find Voyant more helpful as I continue to read Herland. And with enough tinkering I may just become proficient enough to navigate and use the site to its full capabilities. I will be following along with voyant as we continue to read so that I can look for common words and hopefully find the ahh ha moments while reading.
wschmid
I keep hearing about reading other’s comments on Annotation Studio while reading Herland. I’m a bit concerned that having other’s comments while reading a text for the first time could potentially skew our own understanding of the story. I think in the future, reading and commenting without other’s comments visible would lead to unbiased commenting. Then, after we discuss our own comments in class, we could share comments to everyone else to see how the hive-mind functions. I do think shared comments like this would be greatly beneficial to other classes in the program. I think this would have been very nice to have in Young Adult Fiction.