Blog Post #6 - Brittany Means

I really appreciated reading the chapter "Helping Students Read Difficult Texts" from John Bean's book, Engaging Ideas (even though I found the fishing metaphor in the beginning a little contrived). The concepts here were true to what I've experienced teaching rhetoric and tutoring students who are analyzing a text. My students in the past have especially struggled with perceiving argument structures as they read. I hadn't thought of it in those terms before though, so it was helpful to see it described on the page that way, and helpful to get a recommended activity that might help them improve in that area. My plan for next semester, when I'll be teaching rhetoric again, is to make an adjustment to the weekly assignment I've had in the past. Instead of just going out and finding a text and describing the rhetorical elements, I am also going to ask them to highlight the thesis, the supporting points, the evidence, analysis, and conclusion and explain how each part is contributing to the success of the text in convincing them of something. The "what it says/what it does" statement assignment is another thing I'm going to implement.

ALSO, I liked the idea of having texts that aren't discussed in class. In the past, I've had students on their course evaluations complain that we didn't "use" the texts in class, but this chapter gave me the language I didn't have before to explain that sometimes a text is assigned to help them learn to read rhetorically and not necessarily as the topic of writing or discussion.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 2, 2018 at 7:39 PM

    I also liked that Bean validated the concept that not all assignments are meant to be read with equal weight, and that's OK. Of course, objectively I already practice reading on different frequencies, but seeing it here legitimized it in a way that made me feel comfortable recommending it as a strategy for students (talk about readily "believing" the writer, yikes).

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