SQR4

Lisa Marie Lopez
English 1301
Ms. Phan
September 18, 2010
SQR4
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
Summary:
This article talks about how different strategies are used to construct and create written essays. One strategy introduced to us at the beginning is called “rhetorical reading” which is a strategy that is mostly used by the more experienced writers, is a type of tool that helps writers and readers understand the meaning of what they are reading. The article talks about how imagination is helpful when it comes to reading and writing. Emotional connection, simple association, or subordination, stated by the author in the article, is the cognitive process of reading and writing. The article explains how “multiple-representation thesis” helps explain transformations and the process of constructing. An experiment is done on three students testing to see how they think when they read, if they understand what they have read, and how fast they have read. “Content strategies” is explained in the article as a strategy that helps the reader better understand what they are reading. The article differentiates the differences between experienced readers and writers, and student reader/writers. It also talks about how rhetorical reading is being taught to students.
Question:
What do you think is good reading? How would you define rhetorical reading?
To me, good reading is when a person can comprehend what they have read. A good reader is someone who actually takes mental notes, or takes actual notes of something they read to better understand it. I am the type of reader that needs to jot down notes and reread what I have read so that I could not only understand what I am reading but also so I could imagine it. A good reader is someone who could analyze what they have read and criticize. They ask themselves questions and imagine in their minds what they have read. Rhetorical reading is a strategy used to help the reader criticize, identify, and analyze in their own words and ways. I often use this tool whenever I read because it really helps me to create imagery and helps me to foresee what is to come, or what I didn’t understand. Rhetorical reading is not really used by students; it is mainly used by those who are experienced. It is recommended that students use rhetorical reading because it helps the reader and writer with structure in their reading skills. When I had to do summer reading for high school, I couldn’t really comprehend what I was reading so then and there I used rhetorical reading. I got out my pencil and jotted down notes and characteristics on all the characters in the book. It really helped me understand who the character were and what their purpose was.

SQR4

Alyssa Vasquez

Ashley Favata

ENG 1301.28

Instructor: Trang Phan

9/20/10

SQR#4: Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning

Haas, Christina., and Linda Flower. “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of

Meaning.” College Compostition and Communication, Vol. 39, No. 2 (May, 1988), pp. 167-183

Summary:

The article Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning by Christina Haas and Linda Flower in my opinion shows how these strategies are ones built over time. No one wakes up and becomes a great reader much less writer. Actually dissecting a reading and relating the article to real world experiences, understanding the author’s purpose and his effect toward the reader are all aspects needed to fully create an understanding of the reading. “Rhetorical strategies take a step beyond the text itself… In rhetorical reading strategies readers use cues in text, and their own knowledge of discourse situations, to recreate or infer rhetorical situation of the text they are reading” (176). Students mainly just paraphrase, but experienced readers does that and more. A rhetorical view of reading is a great way to open up to the topic and see it and understand it in different perspective, using this strategy helps evaluate the reading by asking questions in order to construct meaning for the text. As students, unlike experienced readers, we are taught to rely on text-based strategies to construct meanings, so we don’t have same full sense of reading as the experienced readers. “To interpret any sophisticated text seems to require not only careful reading and prior knowledge, but the ability to read the text on several levels…”

Question: What does rhetorical reading do for students?

Response: “To interpet any sophisticated text seems to require not only careful reading and prior knowledge, but the ability to read the text on several levels, to build multi-faceted representations. 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). The problem here is that students are reading only for information. I agree with the article in that rhetorical reading seems to be a strategy above average students use and the average does not. I feel in my reading experiences I have only come to try and understand what the author is stating and only after completing the reading I am able to ask myself questions which go beyond the actual readings context. Although I have I have found English to be my better subject, I have never been an above average reader. In elementary our school’s method of teaching reading comprehension was a colored system of short stories organized by length and complexity. At the end of each reading were a series of questions to test the reader. These were the primary methods our school system used to test a readers understanding. I think that from this point students such as me are shaped and molded to only grasp an understanding, and as the article discusses choose “nodes” of information that are in a reading. This article never fully discuses what rhetorical reading analysis is, so the reader is left to decide for themselves what the actual definition is. So with these rhetorical strategies helps us build a better view of what we are reading to have a better understanding of what we are reading.