Rhetorical Reading Strategies And The Construction Of Meaning

It is important for me to point out your misinterpretation and/or misunderstanding of my current positions. I want to be clear, and so you know, I agree 100% with what the statements say! I will follow the current prophets for current events. I read the statements, each in itself as a whole. Reading the one paragraph you left in my box, without reading the paragraph('s) above it (yea, even in its entirety), may lead some to not fully understand what the church has said. And, may even lead some to think we, as Mormons, are bigots and intolerant, as some, would have the world believe. If you agree with the two statements 100%, then we agree 100%. The church still objects to same sex marriage as described in its statement, as so do I. But, being

Hyland, 2002: 222- rhetorical purpose of academic writers in leading their reader in the mastery of new knowledge.

In difficult situations, people attempt to rationalize harsh tasks before completing them. In Jorge Luis Borges's fictional short story, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” a Chinese man named Yu Tsun is forced to spy against the British during World War I for Germany. His mission is to reveal the location of the city Albert, a task he completes by killing Stephen Albert, a man with the same last name. But, Yu Tsun never wants to kill him. He does not want to kill Albert because he detests Germany and respects Albert. Yu Tsun appreciates Albert for solving his family's puzzling mystery, a mystery about a book that Yu Tsun's ancestor wrote called the Garden of Forking Paths. At a first glance, it is questionable why Yu Tsun kills Albert if he never wants to kill him. We notice that just like other people, Yu Tsun needs to identify a strong rationalization before allowing himself to kill Albert, a rationalization he discovers when Albert explains the meaning of the Garden of Forking Paths, an interpretation of the universe that every choice creates a web of outcomes that all occur; Stephen Albert will inevitably die in one of the many outcomes, so Yu Tsun feels justified of the assassination.

When I sit down and reflect on my level of critical reading skills prior to this class, I think automatically back to Ms. Wenzell’s class. In the beginning of my sophomore year, I would say that I was not very experienced when it came to finding symbolism in works or writing proper essays. I was suddenly in a class with hard texts, and difficult essay prompts that I had no idea where to start. However, things started to change eventually. I realized that after each text I read, I started to find myself becoming more comfortable with thinking analytically, and annotating had become more of an automatic thing which in turn helped me to become more comfortable with identifying how a writer portrays their message, not just why. I felt that by the end of the year, I no longer

In effect, the circle-tales, rhyming text, and repetitious stories produce a scaffolding in which teachers can begin to teach comprehension skills. From this scaffolding, a relationship begins to be built between the text, the author, and the reader (Grote-Garcia, 2013). This claim is supported by Rosenblatt’s book The reader, the text, the poem: The transactional theory of the literary work (Rosenblatt, 1978/1994). Both discuss the importance to help students develop this relationship in order to develop reading comprehension

Secondly, Greene and Rose both seem to agree that reading critically and actively is important reading strategy for college student. Greene believes that reading critically which means asking questions about what the author’s arguments are and deciding if students agree or disagree with the author’s arguments is more vital than merely accepting information from the reading. The author seems to believe so because reading actively leads to developing students’ own claims. Some maintain that reading critically is an important reading strategies because “reading entails […] using framing concepts in order to shed light on our own ideas or the ideas of others” (Greene 32). In this quote, framing means asking questions what are author’s arguments and why does he claim the argument when students read.

Getting students to take their reading assignments seriously is a constant battle. Many students remain committed to trying to get by without reading what’s important or only doing it just to prior to tests and exam dates. When given a reading assignment, I always see myself picturing what I read. Like a dream, I put myself in a story or article as if I were really there. I first make sure I read the whole story slowly, to make sure I don't read over things and confuse myself. Then, I go back throughout the story and define any words I don't know the meaning of. When writing a story, its important to look over your ideas and key terms to be able to read like a writer and create your rough draft.

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body”, said Joseph Addison, an English essayist. I believe that reading helps one grow and reach their desired goals. Personally, I am still on my journey, and my past and present English teachers were the main aides. My critical reading skills prior to this class were satisfactory. I was able to find symbols, metaphors, and basic literary devices similar to those, but I would rarely be able to deeply connect them to an overarching motif or seek how they contribute to a character’s actions. Often, I would read past a significant literary device, so I would need reassuring from my classmates and teachers to help me to fully understand how that piece is important.

Elbow presents some important concerns with the way that academic writing is handled in the University system, and I have certainly experienced some of these problems first hand. It is important not to let a few antiquated teaching methods scare one away from all academic writing, however. “I must fight the tradition of treating these readings as monuments in a museum, pieces under glass.” (Elbow 491). It can definitely be said that many teachers of literature do just that. Students are not allowed to question the validity of what has been written in any way and in a very Modernist approach, there is one correct hidden meaning that we may gain access to in a text, and if a student comes up with anything else, they are wrong, and they have insulted a work much greater than them in the canon. This is not the way to introduce students to academic writing. This method will only serve to do exactly what Elbow says, make students “skeptical and distrustful” of their own power over language. The teacher must not have the ultimate say in how a piece of literature is interpreted in the classroom. Rather, they should be a guide. Elbow’s concern is that

Over the semester, we have studied the importance of reading and writing across the essential studies curriculum. In our studies, we have analyzed 3 pieces of literature: Richard Rodriguez’s “the Achievement of Desire”, Lucille P. McCarthy’s a “A Stranger in Strange Lands”, and David R. Russell, and Arturo Yanez’s “’Big Picture People Rarely Become Historians’. We have used these 3 heavily cited and well known articles and narratives to sculpt our ideas around what the purpose of reading and writing in general education is. From the past several papers I have written, I have been able to compile a list of important characteristics from each individual studied in the texts, and have been able to devise my own theory of regarding reading and writing.

Literature and poetry in particular have the potential to make profound impressions on their readers. In the poem “Ulysses” by Lord Alfred Tennyson, the speaker Ulysses argues for his mariners to come back out to sea. Karen Prior’s article “How Reading Makes Us More Human” argues how reading makes one more human. On the other hand, Tennyson makes his argument through Ulysses, as he talks to his mariners while Prior makes her argument to teachers of higher of education. While Tennyson and Prior both use rhetorical situations to persuade their audiences, Prior connects to her audience better by citing compelling and exhaustive research, eliciting sympathy from her audience through her narrative voice, and establishing her credibility by using personal examples and research.

A practice in particular that is considered of high importance in a literacy program is the text analyst, which involves critical reading. Winch et al, (2001) describes text analyst as the way readers analyse and accept or challenge the authors point of view. Working from the belief that texts contain the authors prejudices and preconceptions and that the readers therefore can read critically, taking into account the writers view and opinions. Teachers use this practice by asking pertinent questions to try and ascertain the child’s interpretation of the book in question and it is up to the teacher to try and ask the student relevant questions to draw upon the child’s feelings, ideas and what they think about the text.

Looking over my writing preps from the semester, I am able to see how much I have grown in my ability to analyze prose and poetry. In writing prep #1, we were asked to perform a rhetorical analysis of Billy Collins’ “Poetry, Pleasure, and the Hedonist Reader”. Even though I was often asked to perform “close readings” in high school, through making observations about an author’s writing and identifying how the text interacts with the audience, I came into WR 100 still intimidated by the process of criticizing another author’s work. In writing prep #1, I opened my analysis saying, “Billy Collins is the best-selling poet since Robert E Frost, giving his writing substantial credibility,” which now, seems like impertinent information to the overall purpose of a rhetorical analysis (citation). I also stated, “Collins’ piece on poetry and its significant influence on the human mind does a superb job of describing the pleasures that accompany it and why humans have been drawn to it for so long” (citation). Although I do say that Collins’ piece successfully achieves what he set out to accomplish, I do not explore or explain the rhetoric behind his success. Primarily, I focused on what the over-arching message of the text was, rather than making specific observations about what was being said and why. Compared to my more recent writing preps, and even to writing prep #2, there was great improvement in the thoroughness and depth

There is a famous saying “Every time you open a book, you learn something”. Nevertheless, I had never imagined that reading could be fun, meaningful, and creative. The more I read, and the more I was attached to the books. After I discovered a few of the readings, I realized how the authors wanted to introduce their ideas without telling the story directly. This is fairly new to me. In my earlier English classes that I had studied at the City College of San Francisco, I read mostly textbooks and non-fiction readings. In this English 1B class, I started reading the poem and fiction materials and they are much harder to understand. Surprisingly, it often uses different configurations to educate the readers. At the same

English teachers should adopt a dynamic, student-centered approach toward comprehension of a literary work. In reading lesson, discussion