SQR 4

Christina Hass and Linda Flower College Composition and Communication, Vol. 39, No.29 (May, 1988), Pg 167-183

As I read the articles it focused on mainly how readers used many techniques to read like constructive or rhetorical view of reading. Both reading have different ways of being used to understand a story to get the point of view. When students get to college say they can read good only means that they can read fast and understand big vocabulary, but they don’t really know how to understand a story and get the point of view when they read the story. When the authors conducted the experiment with several students of all kind of reading levels they noticed that all the students were confused while reading it and they couldn’t get the point of view. When they readied the student’s works they noticed that the students tried to understand the text and used strategies to find out what the author was trying to get across in the story. They point out the kind of strategies that people use to understand the authors point of view they use constructing meaning which breaks down the story in several parts and use other strategy to help understand get to the point of view and understand it.

Q. This article states that the “meaning” does not exist in the text but in the readers representations they build. What does this mean and can you relate?

R. To me this means that you can read the article all you want but if you can not relate to what you are reading then it is pretty pointless to read it because you are not going to understand anything at all. In my opinion the only way to understand what you are reading is to make connections with the article. If you read a paragraph, try to relate it to a past experience somehow. For example here is a line from the article “that is, when readers construct meaning they do so in context of a discourse situation, which includes the writer of the original text, other readers, the rhetorical context for reading, and the history of discourse.” You have to try to relate to this in the best possible way that you can. So as you read enjoy yourself and connect to it for it can come better to you. Most readers only skim through a book because it takes too long to read it there is no strategy used there because they didn’t connect to it so when it comes up to the time to write a summary it’s pretty hard to come up with one due to the fact you only skimmed through it did the point of view come to you when you kind of read through it. We build up skills for a reason. It is to help us out on the long improve on our reading skills so we become better readers and understand the point in the story that is called constructive reading. It is to build up on the skill for you can be better at what your reading and understanding it better. In the article they notice that the kids who readied the passage were from all sorts of majors to see how they would react to the story. Apparently they themselves did not make the curriculum that the authors expected. The authors expected to see results but they only got hint that students didn’t understand what they were reading due to what the comments and summaries that were written. So it’s good to reread all your readings to get a good understanding of what the material is.