IB has shifted my approach to reading and thinking about literature.

IB has taught me

how to understand common themes throughout literature and how to find the

meaning. When I read a piece of literature now I find myself constantly trying to find

the meaning behind it. How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster

helped me with this shift. After I read this book at the beginning of the year, everything

else I've read has allowed me to develop a deeper thinking into a deeper meaning. ‘There

There’ by Tommy Orange best exemplifies this change. When I read this novel I

annotated a lot of wondering I had and wrote down lots of connections that I found

that connected to How to read literature like a professor. My approach to reading

literature has also become more exciting than before because of the different things I am

able to find through different pieces of literature. A reading and writing skill that I have

developed is connecting and being able to identify different literary devices. I did not

know lots of literary devices before IB. Now I am able to identify and write about what

they could mean or why an author could have used that specific literary device. My

dialectical journals best reflect how I have developed as a reader and/or writer. When I

wrote my first dialectical journal for The Truth About Stories by Thomas King, I

couldn't find lots of connections and wasn't sure how to put my thoughts into words. I

also did not get a very good grade on it. My most recent dialectical journal was

thoroughly written and thought through. I knew what connection I found and exactly
what I was writing about. I did get a better grade on my most recent one. Next semester

I would like to improve my writing skills. I would like to learn how to make my writing

more interesting and engaging. I am going to focus more on my writing and practice

writing more. I would also like to learn how to connect two pieces of literature together.