SQR #4 Zaira Montellano & Berenice De La Rosa

Zaira Montellano,& Berenice De La Garza
English 1300/1301.161
Trang Phan
09-18-2010
SQR #4
Citation:
Christina Hass and Linda Flower. “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning”. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 39, No. (May, 1988), pp. 167-183

In this article a study was taken place. They viewed Rhetorical Reading and the Construction of Meaning, by studying 10 college students. Four of them where experienced college readers, and the other six where student readers at a freshmen level. The students had to think-aloud while trying to understand a college- level text. A way the readers tried to make meaning of the text was by using a “rhetorical reading” strategy. The students would read a sentence or paragraph, and then try to break it down to try and understand the meaning of it. This strategy was mostly used by the experienced readers. This can be adopted and learned for any reader. They just need to, “…be able to see one’s own text and the texts of others as discourse acts, rather than bodies of facts and information….” Construction of Meaning, “…, trying to construct a well-articulated statement of the “point” of a text may require active searching, inferencing, and transforming of one’s own knowledge. This is a more college level of trying to create a meaning within the text of a piece. By knowing how to find a meaning you are becoming a “Critical Reader”, building an equally sophisticated.

Question:
How do the authors describe the construction of “meaning”?how do you read? Can you relate this process to your reading experience in the past?

Response:
The authors describe the construction of meaning as if it “… does not exist ina text but in readers and the representations they build.” In other words the reader needs to think of what the text is trying to get across. Wheatear what is the purpose, or the intention of the printed text. Both my partner and I compared our different ways of reading, and the strategies we use to define and understand the meaning of the text. We both agreed that we always have to reread the passages to understand more about them. Also highlighting what we might consider to be main points, key words, definitions, subtitles, and italic words. Just how we just described, these are some of the strategies we normally always use when reading in the past and will keep on doing in the future.