Reading to Write (formal essays): the Often Overlooked First Step
Currently, I'm trying to process my last four years as an educator. I've found that one result is an intense desire to write down my thoughts on certain aspects of my pedagogical beliefs and style. My thoughts on reading to write, below, are influenced greatly by my belief that teachers must help students become independent thinkers, which requires a heightened critical capacity and increased self-awareness.
Reading to write cannot happen when one reads passively. Passive reading is done solely for leisure. Thus, it's comfortable, not exacting. My eyes take in the words with minimal meaning and, sometimes, without meaning at all. I receive the written word, the visuals images, unthinkingly, uncritically. My higher order processes shut down for the moment, and I experience enjoyment and delight on a small, matter-of-fact scale. I believe passive reading has many merits, but its easy-going, non-intensive mode cannot generate the material and sensations necessary for essay writing.
In the world of education, teachers often speak of active reading as the appropriate mode for students to learn and employ. While I realize the distinction between passive and active reading is, perhaps, too simple and might collapse easily under scrutiny, I'm using it as a crutch: that's all. Put simply, active reading requires attentiveness. This attentiveness primarily comes from two sources: the teacher (top-down) and/or the student (bottom-up). If a teacher assigns a class some portion of a novel, he might give the students study questions or tell them what to look for. This is very comforting for the class. It provides structure and allows the students to feel like they are on the right track. However, for most of the students, I imagine this top-down approach to active reading turns off, stops up, or desensitizes the students in relation to their personal reactions. (Such a claim is highly contentious, of course. Students who are self-confident will not feel their sentiments suppressed by directives.)
If the teacher truly wishes to foster independent thinking, he'll empower the students to search themselves for a text's meaning; this level of attentiveness, here, comes from the bottom-up (or from the subjective interior out).
For me, reading is an intensely personal experience. I've found that reading is transformative. The reader builds a text's world with his imagination. At the same time, the text challenges, provokes, inspires, excites, saddens, disturbs, vexes, and interests the reader on multiple levels. A relationship is born. Sometimes it's volatile: my conception of a story might change with every run-through. Other times, we can solidify or systematize our beliefs regarding a text, notwithstanding the number of times we read it.
When I ask my students to read, I want them to do so with heightened sensitivity: paying special attention to what moves them. On a first read through, I believe this is very important. Whether it's the mind, heart, or gut, something in us reacts intuitively to a text. That intuition is usually the best starting place for essay writing. It's an insight ripe for the harvest.
Those subjective impressions often take the back seat in formal writing. Yet, I believe they're the wellspring for "objectivity." How to transform an initial sensation into written discourse involves much, much more.
Reading to write cannot happen when one reads passively. Passive reading is done solely for leisure. Thus, it's comfortable, not exacting. My eyes take in the words with minimal meaning and, sometimes, without meaning at all. I receive the written word, the visuals images, unthinkingly, uncritically. My higher order processes shut down for the moment, and I experience enjoyment and delight on a small, matter-of-fact scale. I believe passive reading has many merits, but its easy-going, non-intensive mode cannot generate the material and sensations necessary for essay writing.
In the world of education, teachers often speak of active reading as the appropriate mode for students to learn and employ. While I realize the distinction between passive and active reading is, perhaps, too simple and might collapse easily under scrutiny, I'm using it as a crutch: that's all. Put simply, active reading requires attentiveness. This attentiveness primarily comes from two sources: the teacher (top-down) and/or the student (bottom-up). If a teacher assigns a class some portion of a novel, he might give the students study questions or tell them what to look for. This is very comforting for the class. It provides structure and allows the students to feel like they are on the right track. However, for most of the students, I imagine this top-down approach to active reading turns off, stops up, or desensitizes the students in relation to their personal reactions. (Such a claim is highly contentious, of course. Students who are self-confident will not feel their sentiments suppressed by directives.)
If the teacher truly wishes to foster independent thinking, he'll empower the students to search themselves for a text's meaning; this level of attentiveness, here, comes from the bottom-up (or from the subjective interior out).
For me, reading is an intensely personal experience. I've found that reading is transformative. The reader builds a text's world with his imagination. At the same time, the text challenges, provokes, inspires, excites, saddens, disturbs, vexes, and interests the reader on multiple levels. A relationship is born. Sometimes it's volatile: my conception of a story might change with every run-through. Other times, we can solidify or systematize our beliefs regarding a text, notwithstanding the number of times we read it.
When I ask my students to read, I want them to do so with heightened sensitivity: paying special attention to what moves them. On a first read through, I believe this is very important. Whether it's the mind, heart, or gut, something in us reacts intuitively to a text. That intuition is usually the best starting place for essay writing. It's an insight ripe for the harvest.
Those subjective impressions often take the back seat in formal writing. Yet, I believe they're the wellspring for "objectivity." How to transform an initial sensation into written discourse involves much, much more.
posted by AJV at 11:11 AM
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