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Basic Writing and Service-Learning Teaching Reading in Basic Writing Trends Shown in the CBW Survey of Basic Writing Programs
Collaborative Practices
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Responding to Reading
By: Leah Straschewski
Through writing, students gain a fuller understanding of their reading. Writing assignments can range from informal journal entries to formal research papers. In all forms, writing forces readers to define ideas clearly and so results in fuller comprehension. Writing necessitates rereading and rethinking. Material is not simply ingested; it is digested. Elizabeth Flynn, Reconciling Readers and Texts Talking Back to Texts Charles Bazerman first introduced me to the idea that reading is having a conversation with the writer. In “A Relationship Between Reading and Writing: The Conversational Model,” Bazerman writes, “writing occurs within the context of previous writing and advances the total sum of the discourse (658). Therefore, when a student responds to a text, she is advancing the conversation. Her comments build on what came before and are defined within the context of the text itself (and everything that has already been written about the text) (658). As she argues with the text, redefines the main points and/or adds new material, she is shifting the discussion. Bazerman goes on to say, “If as teachers of writing we want to prepare our students to enter into the written interchanges of their chosen disciplines…we must cultivate various techniques of absorbing, reformulating, commenting on, and using reading” (658). One way to talk back to a text is to actively read and write annotations in the margins. However, lengthy repsonses require more room. Hence, a reading journal. The reading journal is a place for students to enter the ongoing conversation. As Bazerman states, “A reading journal is a diary of your [the student’s] thought processes” (The Informed Writer 27). As such, it is a place to think on paper, to make connections, to argue with a writer, to approve of and extend an idea, to react, to offer counterexamples, and to think about implications. In other words, it’s a way for a student to show that she has really read a text, not just passed her eyes over it. According to Sheridan Blau, reading journals are used by composition teachers to “encourage students to record the questions, confusion, and difficulties they experience in reading texts, so that these problems can be shared with other students and addressed in class discussion…” (The Literature Workshop 154). Therefore, the reading journal can serve as a tool for advancing student understanding. However, in order for a reading journal to facilitate this kind of thinking about reading, it has to be “risk-free.” Unlike quizzes or response questions that cause students to get hung up on having the “right” answer, reading journals should be a place where there is no right answer. In my experience, quizzes do not really elicit what students have learned from the reading and they often stifle discussion as opposed to encourage it. Also, in providing students with specific questions about a reading the teacher is essentially telling them what parts of the reading are important and which passages they need to pay extra attention to. Journal entries allow students to focus on what they found interesting, thereby making students agents of their own learning. In addition, James Britton and his colleagues identify the log or journal as belonging to the expressive mode because, within them, the writer is her own audience and is writing largely to make sense out of what she has been reading; she is writing for her own purposes only. Therefore, journal writing should also be writing that students can engage in without getting hung up on correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. Ways to Enter the Conversation According to Bazerman, “Intelligent response begins with accurate understanding of…what the writer was trying to achieve” (“A Relationship…” 658). Students, as “potential respondents”, need to know not just the point the author is making, but whether or not in making that point if the author is “trying to call established beliefs into question or simply add some detail to generally agreed upon ideas” (658). Bazerman argues that, in order to participate in the ongoing conversation, students need to understand the “dynamics as well as the content” of that conversation (658). Below I have outlined three writing assignments that Bazerman suggests can help students become more “perceptive” readers. These assignments could be done as separate class assignments or as part of journal writing. Paraphrase Paraphrase encourages precise understanding of the writer’s terms and statements. In translating thoughts from one set of words to another, the student is considering exactly what was said and what was not said. Summary Summary reveals the structure of arguments and the continuity of the writer’s thoughts. When summarizing, the student decide which of the others points or claims are most important and which elements unify the piece of writing. Summary and paraphrase are useful skills to possess when the studnet is required to develop her own original argument and in doing so, to refer to the thoughts of others with accuracy and efficiency. Analysis of Technique In analyzing how the writer achieves his purpose, the student can become sensitive to the ways writing can create effects that go beyond the explicit content. (Bazerman offers analysis of advertising as an extreme case of this, but notes that analysis of more “subtle” designs, such as the legal argument or biology report, “will more fully reveal the purposive nature of writing” (659). The Double-Entry Reading Journal This reading journal provides one model student readers can use to enter into the reader/writer conversation. To set up a double-entry reading journal, students should draw a line down the center of a sheet of paper, creating two columns. Using this journaling method, students are asked to record specific passages or quotes in the left column and their reactions, questions, thoughts and/or commentary about those quotes or passages in the right column. As noted above, when student writers are eventually asked to develop their own argument about a text, they need to be able to point to specific places in the text and formulate their argument or reaction around those specific places. The double-entry reading log helps students avoid sweeping generalizations and vague statements and provides evidence for their writing--issues that developing readers and writers typically have trouble with. Below is a list of links to sample double-entry reading logs as well as further reading about their purposes and uses. Sample Logs with Directions
Further Reading
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