David Kime [#6]

 Reading the Bean article was pretty enlightening. I began to think about my own process in school and how I was never really taught how to read with a critical eye. Many of the strategies they describe to help students engage seemed like they were just supposed to be understood at some point. Hence, I was never exactly the most apt with "reading comprehension" portions of exams. Apparently, when I was younger, when the prompt on an exam said, "Describe the wolf," my response was, "The wolf was gray," and left at that. To be fair, I did answer the question, just not in a way that actually said anything about the wolf. I bring this up because what becomes evident is that I was looking for facts, and only facts. All during a time when comprehension correlated with reading speed -- as one goes up, so does the other. If this is what students are taught to value in the early years of their education, then how are they supposed to engage?

With that, I must confess that after reading the Bean article (frankly, before I read it...), I don't exactly consider myself a "good" reader. I know I should be reading for meaning, but most of the time, I just need to get it done -- which brings me to my second major point. Bean writes, "They [experts] '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" (163). I am nowhere near an "expert" and I never have been -- I refuse to write in the margins in physical books (there's a sacredness to them, I guess) and I simply do not have the time, energy, or focus to reread 80 pages twice, let alone three times (barely once). Arguably, this has a huge impact on my writing capabilities, or more specifically, this might be a cause in the apprehension of detailing my own ideas. If I'm "surface reading," failing to actually dive into a text, then I don't exactly have a good model from which to follow when I go about writing. Writing requires an analysis of your own thoughts so that they become clear to others, so that there's meaning behind it, but that skill can't improve by simply whizzing through words on a page.

Comments

  1. RbtaylorOctober 7, 2020 at 11:53 AM

    David,

    I relate on a spiritual level to what you say about not wanting to write in the margins of books. When I was first asked to write in the margins of one of my books as an assignment, it made me sick. Books are sacred to me, and it is not my place to besmirch their beauty with sloppy notes jotted in haste in the margins. The haste is key here, as you point out. I often feel as if I barely have time to read through all of my weekly reading once. Connor and Dylan mention a similar sentiment in their responses to my own post this week. Needing to read through texts on a surface level and not wanting to write in the margins may make me a less-than-expert reader, but there are other techniques I employ that make me a better reader. I will, for instance, hold ideas in suspense while I read in order to assess their validity as new information is presented throughout the text. Much like anything, it cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach, and each reader (with the help of teachers) must ultimately come to their own understanding of what gets them to deeper reading. And, I will never feel comfortable writing in the margins of books.

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