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Jessica Mendoza

 Roxanna Diaz

ENG 1320/1301. 158

Instructor: Trang Phan

Sept. 27, 2010

Linda Flower.”Writer-Based Prose: A Cognitive Basis for Problems in Writing”. College English. Vol. 41, No. 1 (Sep., 1979), pp. 19-37.

Writer-Based Prose: A Cognitive Basis for Problems in Writing

SUMMARY:

            Writer-Based prose reflects on its process and Reader-Based prose reflects on the purpose of the writer. In this article Flower want to explore the different ways of writer-based prose. Inner Speech and Egocentrism, talks about how children develop their ways of thought, by observing this they found a child talking only about himself, to himself, and by himself a way that many kids do so not to come of selfish but to plan, organize, and control their activities kind of like a monologue in play. The egocentric talk of kids and the inner speech of adults have some in commended as well, not just in kids but they share some similarities in adults too.   In a case study of a transformation they show two different drafts, similar but the ways the two drafts are written are completely different. Flower also talks about the function, structure, and style of writer-based prose. If people see writer-based prose as a functional system not just many of mistakes that English teaches know then Flower thinks that it would be easier to teach writing itself. And finally Flower thinks that writer-based prose is one of the problems composition courses are meant to fix. She feels that a reader-based prose is better way to write, which includes a reader in the entire thinking process, but it’s not always possible.

Question:

How would you identify a Writer-Based Prose and a Reader-Based Prose?

Response:

Writer-Based Prose reflects on its process and Reader-Based prose reflects on the purpose of the writer. For example writer-based prose is when we are just writing and do not think of what our audience think. And we sometimes tend to elaborate too much that it just confuses the audience and don’t understand what we are trying to get across. It gets to the point that the reader looses interest and doesn’t focus on the writing itself. Sometimes while writing in writing-based prose we tend to use our own language that the audience doesn’t understand.   In the other hand Reading-Based prose is when the writer “includes the reader in the entire thinking process” and by that the audience is able to understand the paper. While writing in reader-based prose the audience is able to understand it because the writer set the paper in stages that make it easier to understand. The writer also gets right to the point that way the audience doesn’t get lost in too much nonsense detail that the message gets across. The use of vocabulary is much more understandable in the reader-based prose as well. In our opinion in order to have better writing we need to have reader-based prose so that our audience can get our point across in an easy way.  

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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.

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Javier Lopez
Eng 1320/1301
Trang Phan
9/25/10

Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning

S.
In this article, Linda Flower and Christina Hass both explain about the growing consensus in our field of reading; should be thought of as a constructive, rather than a receptive process. In this case, there is different ways in viewing constructive, which are literary theory and cognitive research. They even mention how reading rhetorically is not a separate and different strategy but is a progressive enlargement of the constructed meaning of a text, meaning reading for a purpose is better then reading for recreational purposes due to the fact that it may be dominant and crucial at times. Flower and Hass, both experienced writers explain how difficult teaching to read rhetorically due to the fact that students focus on bits and pieces of the reading and not focus on how the reading is written and how its put together.
Q. What does it mean to have “rhetorical” reading strategies? Do you already practice this method of reading?
R.
If you have rhetorical reading strategies it means that you can relate real well to the content of the paper. Using this strategy is the most important because personally when I read a article or any type of writing, I like to look past the writing and focus on the more in depth features. If you, the reader, can relate to the writer, it is much easier to relate to the ideas stated in the article. Me for instance, it takes a good article to catch my attention, not everything grabs me by the eye, but when that one article comes past me I can relate to it in any way or form I can.

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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.

Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning

SUMMARY:

In this article Christina Haas and Linda Flower write about an observation they did with on ten readers some were student readers and the others were experienced readers. They wanted to know how each of them did construction of meaning when reading something new. In order to do this they gave them a piece of text for them to read and say what they thought. Every few lines they had to stop and ask themselves the question “how do you interpret the text now?”. After the observation they were able to rank the answer into three categories which are content, function/feature, and rhetorical reading strategies. The first strategy is content which means that the response of the reader was about what the text was mainly about. The other strategy is function/feature which is when the reader tries to point out certain part of the text as the main points. The last strategy is rhetorical reading in which the reader finds the purpose and the message the writer is trying to get across. One thing that both of these type of readers were doing was finding claims in the reading but the experienced readers would find them faster because they did rhetorical reading. The authors with these observations were able to conclude that in order for the student to be used the “complex rhetorical model” they have to stop viewing reading as an “information exchange”.

Question:

Christina Haas and Linda Flower describe reading as a constructive process, rather than a receptive one. What do they mean by “constructive process” and “receptive process”?

Response:

What the authors mean when they say constructive process is that it does not exist in the text because we will build our own understanding of the reading. And we do this by connecting what we as readers think what the text is trying to say. Constructive process is also used in a way that we as readers are able to add our own opinion and show our point of view of what we have just read from the articles. We as readers use constructive process when we read something that really interest us. Because when we read something interesting we get mental representation in which it makes it easier for us to understand the text. Receptive process is what we receive form the text, which means we don’t add any opinions of our own or our point of view but what is said straight from the text.  We as readers use receptive process when we read something that does not interest us, for example an article that is being enforced to us to read. So when we read this article we just read it to get it over with. We don’t take the time to actually understand what is really trying to say. We agree with Haas and Flower that in order to fully understand an article we need to use constructive process rather than receptive process.

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Vivyanne Medina & Erika Carrizales
            English 1301.158

Trang Phan

Sept. 14, 2010

Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning

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

Summary:

Rhetorical reading strategies consist trying to make sense of the text just read. It is also a think- aloud procedure to show how reading is both constructive and rhetorical. It is helpful to imagine what readers think about as their going through text. Which are made above many nodes of information? Readers and writers usually try to include information that would give you visual images or expressed emotions, through specific words. They usually add their own perspective to the understanding of the meaning of the text. The teachers as co-readers can teach students how to use their imagination in order to make their text better for the readers. Some students are very good readers but not very good writers. What many of our students need to do is to construct representation of conduct of structure and of conventional features. As for experienced readers, they draw more on the wider rhetorical situation (the author’s purpose, context, and audience) to deconstruct the text, while freshman readers primarily focus on the specific context of the text. The mean proportions of strategies used are content, feature, and rhetorical strategies. Which make a very significant difference in the way we read? These constructive ways of reading would give you better knowledge of what you’re reading and also what you’re writing.

Q:  (a) What does it mean to have “rhetorical” reading strategies? (b) Do you already practice this method of reading?

(a)  “Rhetorical strategies take a step beyond the text itself.” (p.176) What it means is that as a reader we have to think about what we are reading and  make connections with our previous knowledge in order to get a better concept of what we are reading. We have to be extremely careful to what we are reading in order to being able to comprehend the text as better as possible. This concept is mainly used by experienced readers, but sometimes we use it to.

(b)  We do use this method when we don’t get a clear idea of what we are reading; we go back and reread it so we can get a better understanding if it.

Sometimes when we have to summarize a text or something like that, we have to read and put it into our own words so we can understand it, if not just at least have an idea of what that is talking about.

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In “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning”(1988) Christina Haas and Linda Flower are suggesting that reading should be taught as a constructive process rather than a receptive process. They state that there are noticeable differences between expert and student readers do to the way they associate with the text. They noted that student readers mostly utilized “content strategies” rather than “functional strategies” or “rhetorical strategies,” to create what they believe to be a satisfactory understanding of the text; while expert readers used “rhetorical,” “functional,” and “content” simultaneously to create a better understanding of the text, it’s purpose and the emotions the authors seeks to create with in his reader. They (Haas and Flower) use this study, although observational not experimental, with different level readers to point out how readers that use “rhetorical strategies” identify the key points faster and create useful connections to the text than those who don’t. In other words they believe that reading should be seen as a constructive process rather than a receptive process to help readers create a more complex and in depth understanding of any text.

Should reading be taught as a receptive or as a creative process?
We agree with Haas and Flower that reading should be taught as a creative process rather than a receptive process; because if reading is only taught to students as a receptive process they will never “see” past what is in the paper; they will not be able to make any real connection with the text. They (Haas and Flower) say that teaching reading as a creative process will help students create a better understanding of the text, its purpose and the emotions the authors seeks to create with in his reader. We believe that reading should be taught as a creative process; due to the fact that it will help students have a better understanding of the text and the purpose it was supposed to serve. They, the students, will have an easier time reading and responding to a text that they had no prior knowledge (as stated in the scholarly article) or any piece of literature for that matter. Why? Because they will be able to make more connections with the text and as a result they will be able to see the purpose of the text and most importantly they will actually be able to learn something that might help them or something that they can apply in their everyday life. However if reading continues to be taught as a receptive process as it is today the students will continue to struggle with higher lever reading, because they don’t know how to interpret a text; all they know is what the text is saying and nothing else. They are unable to draw conclusions from the text; they will also be unable to recognize ideas that are implied within the text. That is why we strongly believe that reading should be taught as a constructive process rather than a receptive process.

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Adrian Badillo & Zalina Nazarova
Eng 1320/1301.158
9-22-10
Trang phan
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.
This article is about the research that Christina Hass, and Linda flower conducted on
Reading strategies. The authors emphasized on three strategies that the students applied when
reading, which are the following: content, function/feature, and rhetorical. Content strategies
focus mainly on the “summery” of the reading, in other words to just figure out what the text is
saying, function/feature strategies focus not just on what the text is “saying” but also on what the
text is doing by figuring out the main idea that the article is trying to portray. Christina Hass and
Linda Flower assert that reading rhetorically is a far more complex process because besides
figuring out the main ideas and content of the text it goes beyond that and tries to figure out what
the purpose of the reading is.
Question:
Is Rhetorical reading a talent? Or can anyone just read rhetorically?
Rhetorical reading is extremely difficult this is why we don’t see ourselves using rhetorical
strategies in articles like the one we just read, because it is not a subject matter that is attractive
to us. Personally I like to read comics, and readings that concern technology, and Zalina does not
like to read at all.
We believe that that the majority of standard students use content strategies because they just
read to extract the knowledge that the article is portraying. Most of us don’t care what it says or
even think of it at all, they just use the strategies to find the point and get it over with.
We know that function/feature strategies is used by 20 percent of experienced readers which is
a higher percentage than rhetorical reading strategies in experience readers, who I think are
geniuses at English, I guess what we’re trying to say is that they are above average in thinking
capabilities.
Maybe you the reader can help us understand what the small percentage of people think, and
how they are able to read boring articles or boring books, and be able to use rhetorical strategies.
Leave a comment below and tell us what you think.