Reflective Essay On American Wasteland

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To me critical thinking is reading a text, or having a conversation, or watching something on TV and then finding out and understanding what it was trying to portray. Since taking this class I have added more ways for me to think more critically. A few things that have made my critical thinking easier is how to mark a book, reading and reflection, application of wasteland, and the 2 types of information given descriptive and prescriptive.
I know that marking a book is good for critical reading but when we read the article How to Mark a Book I found I was completely wrong. According to the author we need to ask questions, make marks, highlight, underline and basically wear out the book in order to own it. Wow! I must say I love my books and doing that much damage to them is not what makes me a happy camper. I call book abuse. But I saw the point of view from the author on the subject. But what I think is not what I should be doing at this time. I should be reading the article and seeing what the author is trying to portray to me, then make my descion on the matter.
Reading and reflection is something I constantly do on everything whether it is written or verbal. In this class we have done both and it has helped with the reading with American Wasteland especially the first RR journal. The first journals asked us to read and then go to the website and educate ourselves more on the topic and I found it to be rewarding. I had found different things to do with bananas and learned more about food waste all over the world not just in the United States. This is something I do often when I read or hear something of interest that has my wheels turning. I will then go to analyze the topic and then reflect over it. I felt like I never wasted that much food from day to day but after I started reading American Wasteland I have come to find I do seem to waste more than I thought.
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With that being said I have now watched my household’s food waste more carefully and seem to see it more everyday from others around me. One day I caught myself staring at a table next to mine at a restraunt thinking that was a waste of food. The table had 6 orders with each plate having about half their food still on it and a bowl of salad that they had asked for a refill on not even touched. I asked the waitress if there was any way to take it home or maybe to donate it some way but she said no it was against their policy to do both. I never really thought of descriptive and prescriptive points when reading about anything. I always was just trying to figure out what their point was and why. I was reading an article for my ENG102 class and realized that it was prescriptive because of the personal feeling he was conveying in the matter. Nothing ever was about sources or facts; just what he thought was wrong. In the next article I read for the same class on the same matter was full with statistics and sources on the matter and nothing about what his personal view was. But like all things there is always an underlining in everything we perceive bas on what we are told. Depending on the information they could be trying to

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