Writing Analytically, 6th Edition - Rosenwasser, David & Stephen, Jill.original_ [78]
A second and related way that people neglect the actual words is that they approach the reading looking to react. They are so busy looking to respond to other people’s statements that they don’t listen to what the other person is saying. A recent article on reading by the literary and educational theorist Robert Scholes suggests that people read badly because they substitute for the words on the page some association or predetermined idea that the words accidentally trigger in them. As a result, they rehearse their own gestalts rather than taking in what the writer is actually saying (see Robert Scholes, “The Transition to College Reading,” Pedagogy, volume 2, number 2, Duke UP, 2002, pp. 165–172).
We will now survey a few techniques for focusing on individual sentences.
Pointing
Pointing is a practice (associated with two writing theorists and master teachers, Peter Elbow and Sheridan Blau) in which members of a group take turns reading sentences aloud. Pointing provides a way of summarizing without generalizing, and it is one of the best ways to build community and to stimulate discussion.
Select sentences from a reading you are willing to voice.
Take turns reading aloud without raising hands. Read only one of your chosen sentences at a time. Later in the session, you may read again. Pointing usually lasts about five minutes and ends more or less naturally, when people no longer have sentences they wish to read.
No one comments on the sentences in any way during the pointing.
Some sentences in the reading repeat as refrains; others segue or answer the previously articulated line.
Pointing stirs our memories about the particular language of a piece. In reading aloud and hearing others do it, you hear key words and discover questions you’d not seen before; and the range of possible starting points for getting at what is central in the reading inevitably multiplies. Pointing is an antidote for the limiting assumption that a reading has only one main idea. It also remedies the tendency of group discussion to veer into general impressions and loose associations.
Passage-Based Focused Freewriting (PBFF)
Passage-based focused freewriting is probably the single best way to arrive at ideas about what you are reading. It is discussed at length in Chapter 4. Here is a quick reprise of the procedure.
PASSAGE-BASED FOCUSED FREEWRITING: WHAT IT DOES
Find an interesting passage
Sketch its context
Target and paraphrase key words and phrases
Explore why the passage is interesting
Draw out implications
Ask how the passage is representative of the larger reading
WHAT IT DOES NOT DO
Voice reactions and criticisms
Free-associate with other subjects
We cannot overstate how important we think it is to do this activity frequently. The practice will enhance your fluency and help you to trust writing as a tool of thought. It is the best place to practice the heuristics in this book. (Also see the short take, Freewriting: How and Why to Do It, in Chapter 1.)
Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing is an essential skill in reading closely. It is discussed at length in Chapter 2. Here is a quick reprise of the procedure.
PARAPHRASE FOR IMPLICATION
Locate a short key passage
Assume you don’t understand it completely
Substitute other concrete language for all of the key words
Repeat the paraphrasing several times
Ponder the differences in implication among the versions
Return to the original passage and interpret its meanings
Successive restatement allows you to arrive at your own sense of the significance of the sentence. An essential last step in paraphrasing is to return to the original statement and take stock: “This is what I now understand the passage to mean, having done the paraphrase.”
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