A DRWR E

THANKS FOR COMING

Some other people whose ideas am likely to be using:Dr. Mira Pak, Secondary Education; Dr. Kate Stevenson, Mathematics;Dr. Irene Clark, English. The many others beyond the campus are withus as we go—you’ll see references to them here, and on the handout.

“Difficult Texts”A workshop with AFYE and WRAD,

following Tomorrow’s Professor, No. 1154

Sharon M. Klein 20 March 2012

“It seems very pretty,” she said when she had finished it, “but it’s rather hard to understand!” (You see she didn’tlike to confess, even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are!”

The Annotated Alice:Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll, Introduction and notes by Martin Gardner. New York, NY: Times Mirror. 1960.

Douglas Fisher and Nancy FreyCalifornia Alliance for Reading (CAR)on November 7, 2008.

Ibid

Deep reading v. Surface readingSemantic memory

Connections, knowledge, visual images representing the content

“Transformative of one’s perspective […] involv[ing] long term comprehension”Roberts and Roberts 2008, in Tomorrow’s Professor 1145

http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/tomprof/posting.php?ID=1145

When experts read difficult texts, they read slowly and reread often. They struggle with the text to make it comprehensible. They hold confusing passages in mental suspension, having faith that later parts of the text may clarify earlier parts. They "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. They interact with the text by asking questions, expressing disagreements, linking the text with other readings or with personal experience. p. 3, #2

Understanding the reading process—in the face of daunting text. Hey—what makes text(s) daunting?

Not knowing what the text is for: “Why am I reading this?”

Not knowing how to adjust “reading strategies” and the“reading process” (and what are those again?) to the nature (genre?) and purpose(s) of the text.

“unfamiliarity with the text’s genre and the [rhetorical] function of thatgenre within a discourse system” ….huh?

“Learning the rhetorical function [context, and structure—the argument] of different genres takes considerable practice as well as knowledge of a discipline's ways of conducting inquiry and making arguments. Inexperienced readers do not understand, for example, that the author of a peer-reviewed scholarly article joins a conversation of other scholars and tries to stake out a position that offers something new. At a more specific level, they don't understand that an empirical research study in the social or physical sciences requires a different reading strategy from that of a theoretical/interpretive article in the humanities. These genre problems are compounded further when students are assigned challenging primary texts from the Great Books tradition (reading Plato or Darwin, Nietzsche or Sartre, or an archived historical document) or asked to write research papers drawing on contemporary popular culture genres such as op-ed pieces, newspaper articles, trade journals, blogs, or websites.” p. 4

“I don’t get this; it’s too hard.” Is it “too hard?”

NO

What is a text?

Are we in a, er, relationship? What is it?

Do all texts have the same purpose?

"A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer." -- Dean G.Acheson

Should we talk about this in our classes?

Why not?

“cognitive egocentrism?”

http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/ncrcds01.html

“cultural capital?” Bordieu and Passeron 1973 and beyond

“cultural literacy” {E.D. Hirsch)

How about “funds of knowledge?”

cf., Oughton, Helen. 2010. Funds of knowledge: A conceptual critique. Studies in the Education of Adults, v42 n1 p63-78 Spr 2010

Reading models and their Implications: All the pieces are part of the puzzle

Marilyn Jager AdamsBeginning to Read MIT Press. 1990, p. 158

Rand Research brief: R&D program to improvereading comprehension—a bigger picturehttp://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB8024.html

Nash-Webber, Bonnie. 1975. The role of semantics in automaticspeech understanding. pp. 351-382. in Bobrow, Daniel G andAllan Collins. Eds. Representation and understanding: Studies in cognitive science. New York, NY: Academic Press, Inc.

Cited in Marilyn Jager Adams. 1998. Beginning to read: Thinking andLearning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 164

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/20/spring-equinox-google-doodle?newsfeed=true

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/the-northerner/2012/mar/20/wenlock-edge-world-through-lambs-eyes

What we know and what is new—an important relationship in reading

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiP-ijdxqEc

This short video by Daniel Willingham is an excellent overview:

p. 259. Parker and Moore, Critical Thinking, 10th ed. McGraw Hill. 2012.

Some ways to use sentence structure. Imagine a lab report. One could use any of the following:

 As we look, notice that rewording and restructuring yields slightly different meanings—critical reading makes writing more precise—and understanding the implications of including or omitting words 

Adapted from: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/683/01/

The pH level of the acid rose after the addition of water [what does this (not) say?]

The pH level of the acid was raised by adding water. [uses the passive] *I raised the pH level of the acid by adding water. *I added water and it raised the pH level of the acid Adding water raised the pH level of the acid.

The addition of water raised the pH level of the acid. The acid’s pH level was raised by the addition of water. [passive] Added water raised the acid’s pH level.

http://www.yorku.ca/eye/necker.htm

http://www.optical-illusion-pictures.com/ambig.html