EWC - Part 3 - Critical Reading Report (20%)

So let me be clear, and blunt. If you want to be a writer, you need to be a reader. Yes, I've been preaching all course long that to be a writer you need to write, a lot. But you also need to be an avid and diverse reader.

Liken it to being a chef - in order to cook with imagination and inspiration you need to taste a lot of food, and lots of different kinds of food, and good food at that. It's the same thing with being a a writer. In order to stay inspired, motivated and educated you need to read widely and deeply. The classics. The underground. Poets. Playwrights. Novelists. They can all offer you something useful, but only if you use them for that.

You also need to make sure that when you read you are reading both as a reader AND as a writer. Reading as a reader is all about reading to understand WHAT happened - just enjoying the story and getting carried away in the adventure. But to read as a writer you need to take a step back - you need to be objective and watch HOW the author achieves what they achieve. HOW do they describe the characters so successfully such that they dance and talk and play about in your head all day? HOW do they design a setting that makes your sense tingle?

And that's what you're going to do here. I want you to read widely, and for this assignment, I want you to read, as a writer, at least five (5) different pieces of writing. Here is the assignment sheet you should use to create your Critical Reading Reports.

Feel free to choose selections from your own library, or choose some of the pieces below. Just make sure you review at least five (5) different authors.  

Novel Excerpts
Mistry's Family Matters
Adams' Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Woolf's To The Lighthouse
Smith's White Teeth

Poems
Some poems from Dorothy Livesay
Some poems from ee cummings
Some poems from Langston Hughes
Some poems from Maya Angelou
Some poems from Pablo Neruda

Short Stories
"Everyday Use" by Alice Walker
"The School" by Donald Barthelme
"The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by G. G. Marquez
"Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood
"Mr Coffee and Mr Fixit" by Raymond Carver