SQR 4

Vanessa Magdaleno, Mario A. Garcia

ENG. 1301.28

Instructor: Trang Phan

9/20/10

SUMMARY:

“Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning”

Christina Haas and Linda Flower. “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning”. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 39, No. 2 (May,1988), pp. 167-183

In this article, it was observed, and clearly seen that readers can gain different interpretations of the same text. Readers were given a college level text, and were studied to understand the constructive process while reading being played out, and to see if readers are in control of their discourse when reading.
Haas and Flower explain what a “good reader” is. Good readers are more than just having a large vocabulary, recall content well, and read quickly. They should be able to analyze rather that paraphrase and be able to go more into depth as to what is written on the text. Another characteristic is to be able to read and see different perspectives.
A study was done to readers to see how readers come up with meaning. Experienced writers were observed making sense of their reading, while student writers tried to understand the text by simply using text based strategies, such as just seeing the clear meaning of what is written, not challenging it, or questioning it. The subjects thought about their own perspectives when reading the text, and analyzed the issue. This would help them to understand the text. Flower and Haas saw that more experienced writers gained more on the rhetorical situation to break down the text, and sometimes come up with hypothesis’ about what was read, and tried to understand the author’s purpose. However, the less experienced writers based their focus on the specific text. Rhetorical processes play a huge part in critical reading, which is desired for students to learn.

QUESTION:
What can a student get out of reading critically and rhetorically? Why do you believe it's important to use constructive view?

RESPONSE:
Being able to read rhetorically can help gain a better understanding of a text. It can help absorb all the facts and be able to construct and understand the meaning, by recalling on past images, emotions, and experiences. Just as in the study done by Flower and Haas, if a student reads rhetorically, he/she should be able to come up with a hypothesis about a text. In doing so, students will be able to trigger questions and want to know more about a subject read.
In addition, reading critically and rhetorically can help a reader go to the next level and try to understand the author’s purpose. “A text is understood not only as content and information, but also as the result of someone’s intentions, as part of a larger discourse world, and as having real effects on real readers” (170). It is important to try and grasp the author’s feelings about a topic, why he/she wrote it, and their intended audience.
The way readers record information absorbed has a huge role in rhetorical reading. Beliefs, images, and emotions all play into how a student constructs meaning of a text. The way a person interprets a text helps to analyze and explore not only the meaning, but the content, why it was written, the author’s beliefs, and how it was organized.
We believe that it is extremely important to go further that the text, and look deeper into what is being said. Just like many of our peers, we often read what is expected and not analyze what we're reading. We realized that we can gain a whole different perspective if we read critically. It is challenging, and at times confusing, but in the end, we'll know we'll have a better understanding than someone who just read to just get a basic understanding of the content.