SQR 4

Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning
This is article written by Christina Haas and Linda Flower talks about how rhetorical reading is being used by experienced readers and freshman readers. Teachers should help students move pass the information exchange view of reading. So the students could be able to view a reading more expandable and complex rhetorical reading of constructing meaning. Haas and Flower both study readers, to be able to understand their rhetorical reading.
They raise two questions, the first is “how does this constructive process play itself out in the actual, thinking process of reading?” and the second question, “are all readers really aware of or in control of the discourse act which current theories describe?” These two questions helped them understand the reader’s complex college-level text and helped them observe their rhetorical reading view point. There are many strategies that are very helpful; the strategies that help construct a rhetorical situation for the text. Experienced readers draw more onto the wider rhetorical situation to deconstruct the text. On the other hand freshman readers focus more on the specific and actual content of the text.
Rhetorical reading process is very important; it’s a strong element in which a very large process of critical reading is used.
Christina Haas and Linda Flower. “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning”. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 39, No. 2. (May, 1988), pp 167-182.
Question:
What is Constructive rhetorical reading? Does constructive rhetorical reading applies to you and in what way?
Constructive rhetorical reading is “complemented by work in rhetoric which argues that reading is also a discourse act, which is when readers construct meaning, they do so in the context of a discourse situation, which includes the writer of the original text, other readers, the rhetorical context for reading, and the history of the discourse”. By our understanding constructive rhetorical reading is when we star thinking about what we have reader and we star questioning about what is happening, when there’s emotion and we may believe what the author is saying. In our own personal experiences I think most of the times were not aware that we read as constructive rhetorical reading but we do sometimes especially when the article or story interests us. Those are the times when we actually star asking questions about what is happening or why is this like this things like that or also when it relates to something we have pass through already it can also be more interesting or useful for us. Some others way when we actually pay attention to what we are reading is when there is some background behind what we are reading for example if is cultural maybe is about our culture of a culture we read before or depending on what it is if there is some information already in our minds we tend to pay more action and read as constructive readers. Another way we realized later we are reading constructively is when we star getting images or we can kind of read what the writers mental representation is not limited in the story because is represented in a unlimited verbal way or by images, ideas or anything that gives a clue to what the author is thinking at the moment he wrote the piece of writing.