SQR4

Guillermo Cabrera
ENG 1320/1301.161
Trang Phan
9/22/10
Summary 4 Guillermo Cabrera/Raymundo Rivera
Citation: Author(s): 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
In this article, the author’s are trying to help the students to learn rhetorical reading strategies. It states that “We would like to help extend this constructive, rhetorical view of reading, which we share with others in the field, by raising two questions”. With these two questions the students would have their own knowledge of the world, and the topic, and of discourse conventions, to infer, set and discard hypotheses, predict, and question in order to construct meaning for texts. This means that by using rhetorical reading the students would have a better idea of what they are going to write on the topic. The authors have doubts about rhetorical reading strategies, because it’s not easy to learn in just a few days. This lead to an experiment with inexperience and experience from college, and even then they had problems trying to read and write rhetorically. I believed that if reading and writing rhetorically is difficult to teach to students, then we should not be taught something that is going to be difficult for us in the long-run because it might affect us. We should leave it for the experienced writers.

Guillermo Cabrera
ENG 1320/1301.161
Trang Phan
9/22/10
Question: What does it mean to have “rhetorical” Reading strategies? Do you already practice this method of reading?
Respond: Rhetorical strategies take a step beyond the text itself. In rhetorical reading strategies readers use cues in the text, and their own knowledge of discourse situations, to recreate or infer the rhetorical situation of the text they are reading. There is some indication that these strategies were used to help readers uncover the actual “event” of the text, a unique event with a particular author and actual effects. We also think that it means to have a better understanding of the authors purpose, and going beyond what is in the content. We can also infer from the article that rhetorical strategies include not only a representation of discourse as discourse but as unique discourse with a real author, a specific purpose, and actual effects. This possible relationship between strategies may point to a building of skills, a progression which makes intuitive sense and is supported by what we know about how reading is typically taught and by teachers’ reports of typical student reading problems. No, I haven’t practice this method of reading I think it is difficult to learn and back in high school they really didn’t even touch the surface of rhetorical strategies. Hopefully I could be taught this method through my years of college so that in the near future I would know how to use this method in my papers.