Strong Reading

As I pointed out in class, the author's introduction is itself an example of the type of writing you will encounter int the text. B and P offer many ways to think about reading and writing, but primarily, they want to think of it as a a "social interaction," that is, like a conversation. One of the imaginative ways B and P frame reading is in terms of speaking/silence: 

the pages before you will begin to speak only when the author's are silent and you begin to speak in their place--sometimes for them--doing their work, continuing their projects--and sometimes for yourself following your own agenda" (1).

In my third period class, we discussed the ambiguous line between "subjective" reading and objective reading. A student pointed out this passage: "If ten of us read his essay, each would begin with the same words on the page, but when we discuss the essay (or write about it), each will retell and interpret Rodriguez's story differently" (2). Although this is legitimate, one's reading needs to be supported by evidence, that is, the words on the page.

B&P's emphasis on "different" interpretations prompted the counter-claim that we need to be faithful to what the author "wanted" to say. Whereas this may be easy in close formed prose, texts that, in Bartholomae's words, "announce their own meaning with little effort and ask little from the reader," the essays that we are going to read are on the continuum line between "closed" and "open" prose. We are less sure what the author "wanted" to say.

To illustrate, a student argued that all 11 pages can be summarized as the author's desiring that we "put it in our own perspective." While this is part of what B&P mean, there is much else to get from the essay. For instance, its not so much that we put it in "our own perspective" in the sense of "experience," but rather that we put it in the perspective of another author or thinker (we will do this in the 'synthesis' portion). Furthermore, we need to inquire into what this interpretation--what does it mean to "put something in one's own perspective?"  In my second period class, we focused on a different passage:

To get a better sense of what we mean by 'working with difficulty,' it might be useful to look at an example. One of the selections in Ways of Reading is a chapter from a book titled Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. The chapter is titled "The 'Banking' Concept of Education," and the title summarizes the argument at its most simple level. The standard forms of education, Freire argues, define the teacher as the active agent and the student as the passive agent. The teacher has knowledge and makes deposits from this storehouse into the minds of students, who are expected to receive these deposits completely and without alteration--like moving money from a wallet to the bank vault. And this, he argues, is not a good thing. (11)

 One of my students found this conception of education problematic. To paraphrase her, "I like memorizing things and think that it is a good way of education." In order to see how her objection can be taken care of, I suggested we look back at the text and make sure we are getting Freire's argument correct. B&P say that his form of education "define the teacher as the active agent and the student as a passive agent" (11). I suggested to this student that though memorization and a communication of facts may be necessary, perhaps we should not believe this is the only way (the only "right" way) we can educate someone. Or, again, that we may need to memorize facts, but that this is not the end point.

Another student brought this up--that its what you do with the facts that matters. I suggested that we think about the essays in this book in a similar manner--what do we do with these essays? "Doing" involves argumentation and persuasion--this will be the point of our essays. B&P put it this way:

In every case, then, the material we provide to direct your work on the essay, story, or poem will have you constructing a reading, but then doing something with what you have read--using the selection as a frame through which you can understand (through which you can 'read') your own experience, the examples of others, or the ideas and methods of other writers. (17)

 Perhaps an example is in order. Let us return to the passage on Freire. What is B&P doing with this example/essay? Are they arguing for the same thing Freire is arguing for? What is their purpose for citing Freire? Their main purpose is to get a "better sense" of "working with difficulty" (11). So, they are using the example for their own purposes!

Similarly, B&P interpret a passage from Ralph Waldo Emerson to re-inforce their point: "In 'The American Scholar,' Ralph Waldo Emerson says, 'Meek young men grow up in libraries [. . .]' What Emerson offers here is not a fact but an attitude" (9). In other words, B&P are trying to find the significance of Emerson's examples. The phrase "What Emerson offers here" signals to the reader that this is B&P's interpretation of Emerson's quotation. The essay from which B&P quotes is trying to make the argument that books should be used in a certain way: "Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire" (Emerson). B&P seem to agree with Emerson's way of thinking: these essays are meant to inspire your own projects rather than to merely distribute information.


Strong Reading: Reading With and Against the Grain

There are "tools" in B&P's essay--distinctions that they make that can be useful, distinctions that will allow us to "do" something with this essay.

Reading with the grain is to "read generously, to work instead someone else's system, to see your world in someone else's terms" (9). Thus, returning to an earlier argument, it is not the case that B&P merely want us to "put it in our perspective," but rather that they want us to put our own experience in the perspective of the essay. Its a two way street.

Reading against the grain, in contrast, is to find examples or arguments that challenge an essay's argument or perspective. Thus, as B&P put it, reading "requires a difficult mix of authority and humility" (9).

Saying and Doing

Another useful distinction that we can use to guide our reading is the difference between "saying" and "doing." An author may be saying one thing, but they are doing something in the context of the essay (there is a reason why it is there and not another place--or not there at all) (see B&P page 18). What the author is "doing" usually refers to the persuasive aspects of their argument--its rhetoric.