From what I have noticed about my tutee’s reading strategies is they all seem able to generate summaries of the text, but have a difficult time relating the summary, or taking what they need from said summaries, to support their own theses and essays. In our sessions I have tried to emphasize that in summaries, they should only be taking the parts they need, and don’t have to restate the entire text in their essays. They can often choose quotes that encapsulate the text’s main points, but once again, have difficulty making the connection to their essays and choosing quotes that support their ideas, not the author’s. It’s important for me, and for them, that they understand the texts as a whole. The reoccurring issue is helping them make their own understanding of the essay’s prompts using texts as supplement, not an outline. I have focused on asking a lot of questions regarding how relevant the texts are to their thesis. Questions like, “Could you explain to me how this quote supports your thesis?” or “what is it from ___’s story you want to emphasize in your essay, or how does this claim by ___ support your thesis?” I’ve also suggested that in future readings, they read the text once, then think back to the essay prompt, think about a thesis they may want to pursue, then go back through the text and find key points or quotes that would support, or counter, their thesis. So that when the time comes to draft an essay, they already have an outline for their textual support.
One thing that I’ve noticed about my tutees’ reading strategies, from their tutoring sessions as well as being in class, is that some of them had difficulty looking at the content of the paper as a whole. The reading that we have been working with criticizes technology and a lot of students seemed to get caught up on the fact that the author is from an older generation and they seemed to get defensive of her criticisms. This led a lot of them to miss the broader context of the essay and I noticed a lot of disconnect between their papers and the reading. As for the relationship between their reading and drafting, I did not get the chance to see much of how they connected because a lot of students met with me after they had already written a draft. However, I was able to notice which students may not have fully understood the reading because their papers were not necessarily lining up with the point of the reading.
I have not tried any of the strategies that are mentioned in the reading but I liked all of the ones they mentioned and I would like to incorporate them into some tutoring sessions, as well as in my own learning. The strategy that I liked the most were the ones that are offered when you aren’t understanding what you’re reading. I thought that those were helpful and important because it focuses on trial and error and figuring out different methods to use that will help with comprehension. I thought they offered a lot of different things to do, which I liked. I also liked the strategy of summarizing as a way for increasing understanding of readings as a whole as well as summarizing certain paragraphs. I have not experienced any of the examples that start on page 109, but I have found it difficult to remain in the tutor position instead of an editor or just giving the answers out.
I really liked this chapter because it allowed me to reflect on my own reading style and what strategies I use. In meetings I have not asked about tutees’ reading styles specifically, but through this chapter I am able to infer about some of their methods. For many of the tutees it is unfortunately clear that when they are reading pre-modern texts or writings about pre-modern texts specifically, many get stuck on terms they are not familiar with. Through their explanations of the texts, it is clear that they have not gone back and looked up the definitions or meanings of the terms in their era. Many tutees I have worked with have gotten bogged down by vocabulary and it has limited them in how deeply they can understand key ideas of the readings and the course. That surface level understanding translates to their writing, specifically their drafts. Many times, I have had writers pull multiple sentences from a source to illustrate their points instead of paraphrasing and giving their own analysis. I really try to adhere to the message in chapter 8 of helping “the writer discovers [the] meaning not just of that particular text but of future readings” (108 Gillespie & Lerner).
I think the SQ3R strategy would be beneficial to the writers I have been working with. This is also a strategy I will use in the future as it is very useful in breaking down texts and identifying key information. The strategy goes back to Sheri’s reading style on 103, where she states that she uses the headings of texts to develop questions she can later answer to keep her engaged.
I have definitely had an experience close to example one in the chapter. I do not have time to digest chapters long history texts to help writers find their key points to write about, so I have been in situations where they are asking me for the answers on Aristotle’s ideas on motion. I will definitely use the strategies in the chapter, like the SQ3R or telling them to look up definitions, to help them understand the readings better so I can help them break down how they want to write about them.
The first thing that I liked about this chapter that I found was interesting was the formatting of the beginning. I liked how the beginning paragraphs were from different points of views and how each one kind of took a different angle to it. I liked Susans little blurb, talking about how she was a close reader who marks up almost everything she reads. I love that in a person and I also think that makes for a lot stronger of a connection to something that we’re reading. Another thing this chapter talks about was the three (ish) ways that writing can correlate to reading. It mentioned how sometimes writing is made just to make sense of what one reads, sometimes it’s to analyze/evaluate and others it’s to present the reading as information. I don’t necessarily think that these are strictly the only ways to correlate writing with reading, however from an educational standpoint it makes sense. This chapter also lists off bullet points of things to do when you don’t quite understand something that you’re reading and I think a list like this would be very helpful to a lot of students as a lot of people struggle with assigned readings. To connect this chapter back to things we’ve talked about in almost every class, the end says to try and have the students explain what they are reading back to you, that way as they say it out loud they can try to make more sense of it.
4 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 5”
From what I have noticed about my tutee’s reading strategies is they all seem able to generate summaries of the text, but have a difficult time relating the summary, or taking what they need from said summaries, to support their own theses and essays. In our sessions I have tried to emphasize that in summaries, they should only be taking the parts they need, and don’t have to restate the entire text in their essays. They can often choose quotes that encapsulate the text’s main points, but once again, have difficulty making the connection to their essays and choosing quotes that support their ideas, not the author’s. It’s important for me, and for them, that they understand the texts as a whole. The reoccurring issue is helping them make their own understanding of the essay’s prompts using texts as supplement, not an outline. I have focused on asking a lot of questions regarding how relevant the texts are to their thesis. Questions like, “Could you explain to me how this quote supports your thesis?” or “what is it from ___’s story you want to emphasize in your essay, or how does this claim by ___ support your thesis?” I’ve also suggested that in future readings, they read the text once, then think back to the essay prompt, think about a thesis they may want to pursue, then go back through the text and find key points or quotes that would support, or counter, their thesis. So that when the time comes to draft an essay, they already have an outline for their textual support.
One thing that I’ve noticed about my tutees’ reading strategies, from their tutoring sessions as well as being in class, is that some of them had difficulty looking at the content of the paper as a whole. The reading that we have been working with criticizes technology and a lot of students seemed to get caught up on the fact that the author is from an older generation and they seemed to get defensive of her criticisms. This led a lot of them to miss the broader context of the essay and I noticed a lot of disconnect between their papers and the reading. As for the relationship between their reading and drafting, I did not get the chance to see much of how they connected because a lot of students met with me after they had already written a draft. However, I was able to notice which students may not have fully understood the reading because their papers were not necessarily lining up with the point of the reading.
I have not tried any of the strategies that are mentioned in the reading but I liked all of the ones they mentioned and I would like to incorporate them into some tutoring sessions, as well as in my own learning. The strategy that I liked the most were the ones that are offered when you aren’t understanding what you’re reading. I thought that those were helpful and important because it focuses on trial and error and figuring out different methods to use that will help with comprehension. I thought they offered a lot of different things to do, which I liked. I also liked the strategy of summarizing as a way for increasing understanding of readings as a whole as well as summarizing certain paragraphs. I have not experienced any of the examples that start on page 109, but I have found it difficult to remain in the tutor position instead of an editor or just giving the answers out.
I really liked this chapter because it allowed me to reflect on my own reading style and what strategies I use. In meetings I have not asked about tutees’ reading styles specifically, but through this chapter I am able to infer about some of their methods. For many of the tutees it is unfortunately clear that when they are reading pre-modern texts or writings about pre-modern texts specifically, many get stuck on terms they are not familiar with. Through their explanations of the texts, it is clear that they have not gone back and looked up the definitions or meanings of the terms in their era. Many tutees I have worked with have gotten bogged down by vocabulary and it has limited them in how deeply they can understand key ideas of the readings and the course. That surface level understanding translates to their writing, specifically their drafts. Many times, I have had writers pull multiple sentences from a source to illustrate their points instead of paraphrasing and giving their own analysis. I really try to adhere to the message in chapter 8 of helping “the writer discovers [the] meaning not just of that particular text but of future readings” (108 Gillespie & Lerner).
I think the SQ3R strategy would be beneficial to the writers I have been working with. This is also a strategy I will use in the future as it is very useful in breaking down texts and identifying key information. The strategy goes back to Sheri’s reading style on 103, where she states that she uses the headings of texts to develop questions she can later answer to keep her engaged.
I have definitely had an experience close to example one in the chapter. I do not have time to digest chapters long history texts to help writers find their key points to write about, so I have been in situations where they are asking me for the answers on Aristotle’s ideas on motion. I will definitely use the strategies in the chapter, like the SQ3R or telling them to look up definitions, to help them understand the readings better so I can help them break down how they want to write about them.
The first thing that I liked about this chapter that I found was interesting was the formatting of the beginning. I liked how the beginning paragraphs were from different points of views and how each one kind of took a different angle to it. I liked Susans little blurb, talking about how she was a close reader who marks up almost everything she reads. I love that in a person and I also think that makes for a lot stronger of a connection to something that we’re reading. Another thing this chapter talks about was the three (ish) ways that writing can correlate to reading. It mentioned how sometimes writing is made just to make sense of what one reads, sometimes it’s to analyze/evaluate and others it’s to present the reading as information. I don’t necessarily think that these are strictly the only ways to correlate writing with reading, however from an educational standpoint it makes sense. This chapter also lists off bullet points of things to do when you don’t quite understand something that you’re reading and I think a list like this would be very helpful to a lot of students as a lot of people struggle with assigned readings. To connect this chapter back to things we’ve talked about in almost every class, the end says to try and have the students explain what they are reading back to you, that way as they say it out loud they can try to make more sense of it.