WR R
E
THANKS FOR COMING
“Difficult Texts”
A workshop with AFYE and WRAD, following
Tomorrow’s Professor, No. 1154
Sharon M. Klein
20 March 2012
Some other people whose ideas am likely to be using:
Dr. Mira Pak, Secondary Education; Dr. Kate Stevenson, Mathematics;
Dr. Irene Clark, English. The many others beyond the campus are with
us as we go—you’ll see references to them here, and on the handout.
“It seems very pretty,” she said when she had finished it,
“but it’s rather hard to understand!” (You see she didn’t
like to confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out
at all.) “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I
don’t exactly know what they are!”
The Annotated Alice:Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,
Through the Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll, Introduction and notes by Martin Gardner.
New York, NY: Times Mirror. 1960.
Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey
California Alliance for Reading (CAR)
on November 7, 2008.
Ibid
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/tomprof/posting.php?ID=1145
Deep reading v. Surface reading
Semantic memory
Connections, knowledge, visual images representing the content
“Transformative of one’s perspective […] involv[ing] long term comprehension”
Roberts and Roberts 2008, in Tomorrow’s Professor 1145
When experts read difficult texts, they read slowly and reread often. They
struggle with the text to make it comprehensible. They hold confusing
passages in mental suspension, having faith that later parts of the text may
clarify earlier parts. They "nutshell" passages as they proceed, often
writing gist statements in the margins. They read a difficult text a second
and a third time, considering first readings as approximations or rough
drafts. They interact with the text by asking questions, expressing
disagreements, linking the text with other readings or with personal
experience. p. 3, #2
Understanding the reading process—in the face of daunting text. Hey—what
makes text(s) daunting?
Not knowing what the text is for: “Why am I reading this?”
Not knowing how to adjust “reading strategies” and the
“reading process” (and what are those again?) to the
nature (genre?) and purpose(s) of the text.
“unfamiliarity with the text’s genre and the [rhetorical] function of that
genre within a discourse system” ….huh?
“Learning the rhetorical function [context, and structure—the argument] of
different genres takes considerable practice as well as knowledge of a
discipline's ways of conducting inquiry and making arguments. Inexperienced
readers do not understand, for example, that the author of a peer-reviewed
scholarly article joins a conversation of other scholars and tries to stake out a
position that offers something new. At a more specific level, they don't
understand that an empirical research study in the social or physical sciences
requires a different reading strategy from that of a theoretical/interpretive
article in the humanities. These genre problems are compounded further when
students are assigned challenging primary texts from the Great Books
tradition (reading Plato or Darwin, Nietzsche or Sartre, or an archived
historical document) or asked to write research papers drawing on
contemporary popular culture genres such as op-ed pieces, newspaper articles,
trade journals, blogs, or websites.” p. 4
“I don’t get this; it’s too hard.”
Is it “too hard?”
NO
What is a text?
Are we in a, er, relationship? What is it?
Do all texts have the same purpose?
"A memorandum is written not to inform
the reader but to protect the writer."
-- Dean G.Acheson
Should we talk about this in our classes?
Why not?
“cognitive egocentrism?”
“cultural literacy” {E.D. Hirsch)
“cultural capital?” Bordieu and Passeron 1973 and beyond
How about “funds of knowledge?”
http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/ncrcds01.html
cf., Oughton, Helen. 2010. Funds of
knowledge: A conceptual critique. Studies in
the Education of Adults, v42 n1 p63-78 Spr
2010
Reading models and their Implications:
All the pieces are part of the puzzle
Marilyn Jager Adams
Beginning to Read
MIT Press. 1990, p. 158
Rand Research brief: R&D program to improve
reading comprehension—a bigger picture
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB8024.
html
Nash-Webber, Bonnie. 1975. The role of semantics in automatic
speech understanding. pp. 351-382. in Bobrow, Daniel G and
Allan Collins. Eds. Representation and understanding: Studies
in cognitive science. New York, NY: Academic Press, Inc.
Cited in Marilyn Jager Adams. 1998. Beginning to read: Thinking and
Learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 164
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/20/springequinox-google-doodle?newsfeed=true
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/thenortherner/2012/mar/20/wenlock-edge-world-through-lambseyes
What we know and what is new—an important relationship in reading
This short video by Daniel Willingham is an excellent overview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiP-ijdxqEc
p. 259. Parker and Moore,
Critical Thinking, 10th ed.
McGraw Hill. 2012.
Some ways to use sentence structure. Imagine a lab report. One could use any of the
following:
As we look, notice that rewording and restructuring yields slightly different meanings—
critical reading makes writing more precise—and understanding the implications of
including or omitting words
Adapted from: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/683/01/
The pH level of the acid rose after the addition of
water
[what does this (not) say?]
The pH level of the acid was raised by adding water.
[uses the passive]
*I raised the pH level of the acid by adding water.
*I added water and it raised the pH level of the acid
Adding water raised the pH level of the acid.
The addition of water raised the pH level of the acid.
The acid’s pH level was raised by the addition of
water. [passive]
Added water raised the acid’s pH level.
http://www.optical-illusionpictures.com/ambig.html
http://www.yorku.ca/eye/necker.htm