SQR#4 Israel Flores & Edgar Ocana

   

Israel Flores, Edgar Ocana

ENG 1320/1301. 161

Instructor: Trang Phan

Date: 9/22/10

      

                                              SQR#4

Citation:

Christina Haas and Linda Flower. “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning”. College Composition and communication, Vol.39, No.2. (May 1988), pp. 167-183.

Summary:

The meaning does not come from the text but from what they understand. Or imagine from what there reading. The best strategies of reading are the Rhetorical Strategies were they take a step beyond the text itself. They are trying to find the purpose; help the reader uncover the main reason of the text. What the author is trying to get through the reader. Another strategy that they use was the content strategy. Were the reader may be questioning, interpreting, or summing content, paraphrasing what the text is about or is saying. With this strategy their reader asks himself questions on what his trying to figure out. The last strategy that the reader use is Function Feature strategy was to refer to convention, generic functions of text, or conventional features of discovers. Readers use these strategies when they try to read names text parts, pointed to specific word, sentences or large sections of text. This are three of the most important strategies readers use to get what the writer is trying to get through the reader. Or to make them imagine an experience you when through. People use these tools to make it easier on them when they are reading. And try to get the point from the writers prospective.

Question: What are the strategies for constructing meaning?

Response:

A study was conducted between students and experienced readers to analyzed the proportion of strategies they used. Three different strategies that reader utilize in constructing the meaning are content, feature, and rhetorical.  Content Strategies as comments coded are concerned with content or topic interpreting, or summing content, paraphrasing what the text “is about” or “is saying.”  The study showed that 77% of student and 67% of experienced reader used this mean proportion of strategies.  Second is the feature strategies, these were used to refer to conventional, generic functions of text, or conventional features of discourse.  The results of this study showed that students use 22% and experienced reader used 20% proportion of this strategy. And the third strategy is rhetorical which means to take a step beyond the text itself.  Students used 1% and experienced writers used 13% of this proportion.  These are some of the constructing tools or strategies that both student and experienced readers use to create a gist and paraphrasing the reading.  The construction of text that readers use is progressive means. The reading for content is usually dominant and crucial- other kinds of strategies build upon content representations. The reading for functions also known as features strategies are generic and conventional- easily identified in texts and often explicitly taught.  Finally, rhetorical strategies include not only a representation of discourse but as unique discourse with a real author, a specific purpose, and actual effects.  These strategies are very useful and helpful for getting the information from the text and understanding the complexiblity of ways all readers construct meaning.