Introduction
Reading becomes meaningful to the extent that aspects of this connection reveal themselves – our connections with how ideas in a text relate to our experiences and ideals, world events around us, history from which we perceive them, or other texts. The strategy Text-to-Text, Text to Self and World used for the next reading activity supports students in developing such a habit. The reader comprehends and makes sense of what is presented as ideas in a text through purpose. This approach can be applied to any Text, whether cultural and historical or societal and literary, as well as in another medium like film. It can also be used at the beginning, during, or end of reading activities to involve students with a text to support meaningful understanding and test comprehension. Consequently, this essay paper describes a personal experience with these three connectors through our class work and how important they are to comprehend the Text and understand things in life.
A text-to-self connection ties ideas in the discussion to the student’s personal life experiences. Upon our sample, dystopian themes found in “1984” clearly correspond to mine being an individual of a society that increasingly uses technology. The modern era is depicted with the surveillance culture in this novel, and such a type of constant supervision made by Big Brother watching citizens brings parallelism. The prevalence of smartphones and social media has made me more self-conscious about constantly being monitored. Orwell’s depiction of a loss of privacy continues to linger over me as eerily applicable. This relationship sparks thoughts about the disappearance of personal limits in today’s interdependent world and its implications for human freedom.
Second, a text-to-text connection compares the concepts of one Text with another. The texts the students explore may include stories, books, movies, songs or any media form. Thus, in this instance, deepening the connections between Orwell’s “1984” and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451: discovering thematic parallels of criticism of oppressive governments that suppress freedom of thought. Phan, Long, James et al.( 2106.03598) state that intellectual freedom is restricted, and dissent is treated harshly in both novels. From a comparison of the two texts, it is clear that any dystopian vision has similar concerns under totalitarian control. This link augments my apprehension of dystopian literature, which brings out recurring themes and strengthens the argument that these warnings provide a timeless message about what can occur due to uncontrolled power.
Lastly, a text-to-world connection relates a text to events in the larger world: the past, present, and future (EDUTEC, 351-367). The socio-political problems associated with mass surveillance and censorship, like the ones covered in “1984”, can be observed by examining their real-life implications. Modern society faces constant innovation in technology around the globe, particularly when it comes to genetic engineering, artificial intelligence or surveillance, which raises worries about ethical issues and loss of freedom. Governments and corporations have an ever-growing appetite for personal information, which creates privacy issues and the risk of concentration of power (Fasihah and Cindy, 2023). Recent events best illustrating Orwell’s warnings include debates centred on censoring offensive information from online resources and the impact of technology on politics. This Text to world connection provokes critical thinking towards the society he lives in, making him reflect on how sensitive it is for technology versus freedom of one’s own.
However, the approach of Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, and test-to-Word Strategies differs depending on one connection because you can offer students to write from a single correlation between texts found with another based on their private lives or the wider world. Besides one connection, mapping connection is another alternate variation in these approaches (Tang, Yun, et al.). This shows that social maps represent relationships between individuals rather than between concepts and events. Social Maps are the next step that could involve students drawing the connections between a present text and any other ideas, happenings, or occurrences. Students can collaborate in completing these maps showing relationships within their answers.
In conclusion, this analysis of text-to-self, text-to-text and Text-to-world connections deepens readers’ understanding of the chosen texts through a more refined lens of personal experiences. Literary themes are broader societal issues, so this method is most effective with a text that addresses general matters, similar to some students’ experiences or material the students have studied before. A hard copy of the Text, which students can mark up, is often provided to the teacher, but this practice is optional. Any opportunity to discuss other students’ responses leads Students to develop a richer understanding and appreciation for their classmates and the world around them.
Reference
Phan, Long N., et al. “Scifive: a text-to-text transformer model for biomedical literature.” arXiv preprint arXiv: 2106.03598 (2021). https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.03598
Fasihah and Cindy. Exploring teacher’s strategies in teaching reading comprehension of descriptive texts: A case study at junior high school. Diss. UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung, 2023. https://digilib.uinsgd.ac.id/81469/
Tang, Yun, et al. “Improving speech translation by understanding and learning from the auxiliary text translation task.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2107.05782 (2021). https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.05782
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