Dorone: I think it is very important to not only read your own work, but to read and understand your classmates’ work. While reading my classmate, Doron’s work, I found he made many compelling arguments. “I guess certain parts of this film are meant to be left with mystery, with the intent of the audience figuring out the rest independently”. This sentence is so important for the audience to understand because an author or writing isn’t always going to tell the whole story, the audience might have to use context clues to figure the rest out. Drone was writing about Aladdin when he wrote this sentence, so he is inferring that the writer of the movie wanted the audience to “fill in” the mystery. 

Emily: Reading my classmates’ work allows me to get another perspective on different texts. While reading Emily’s portfolio, I found the following sentence to be a great point that I hadn’t thought of before. “Said’s criticism makes me more skeptical of how information impacts our opinions on various cultures and other areas”. In class we had discussed how Said’s claims and arguments have changed the way we, as the audience view the topic but I hadn’t realized to what extent it affected the natives of that culture. 

Maddie: After reading Maddie’s portfolio, I loved her reflection of “Should we be reading The Nights?” Many people in my class thought we should be reading The Nights, myself included so it was interesting to hear Maddie’s thoughts on the opposing side. She thought The Nights was very controversial and racist and that it did not benefit students because it was a false narrative of the culture.