Theoretical Approaches to Reading Instruction

This essay covers the different theories and techniques in which people have learned to read, along with the arguments of the supporters of these different methods. There is the alphabetic approach, the word as a whole approach, and the meaning-first approach. The difference between these three, basically, is the order in which the three main principles are taught. The overall conclusion that I came up with is that, since all three are so intricately tied to one another, there can be no obvious right or wrong answer to which should come first. I suppose that I would be biased, based on my own education, that the alphabet should be taught first, therefore creating a foundation for the words and their meanings to follow.
I will say that I had two favorite parts in this essay. The first was at the bottom of page 313 where Adams writes "as they read, they fixate virtually each and every content word, quite meticulously processing the letters and spellings and translating the print to speech as they proceed." I liked to read what I was doing as I was doing it. It threw me for a loop.
My second favorite part was on page 312. He says "it was argued [that the] process of oral reading diverted attention from thought to pronunciations and expression." I really only liked this sentence because it conflicts with Ong's statements about the written word versus the spoken word.

Ong Again

I'll admit, the first time reading Ong I didn't spend much time looking up words that I was unfamiliar with. This time, however, I did take the time and my understanding of his essay expanded greatly. Though it may come across at times that Ong is a "writer-basher", I think the last sentence of the essay provides enough evidence to the contrary. He states "writing is a consciousness-raising and humanizing technology". That last line made me think that the entire essay was a way to make the reader conscious of the ways that writing can be taken for granted or misused. I found him to be making a very clear point that, with writing and reading, there is a separation (or can be) between writer and reader. The two never have to be aware of each other (except for in the underlying sense of "I am writing something to be read" and "I am reading what somebody has written", respectively.) It is because of this, the fact that a first-hand account is no longer necessary for information to travel, that there becomes detachment. And this detachment can have negative effects (i.e. the many discussed by Ong), but the overall outcome is far more positive. Information has a permanence. The reader can be conscious of the writer, the writer can (and as we've learned, should) be conscious of their reader. That consciousness makes writing the humanizing technology that it is.

Pencils!

Dennis Baron is right when he says that "we seldom give any thought" to the "humble wood pencil" (73). Never before had I thought so deeply about pencils! It's funny, isn't it? The in-depth procedure, the complexities of making such a simple, basic tool. Baron certainly made me appreciate the simpler things a little bit more.
I enjoyed reading this essay. It felt like Baron was constantly adding little bits of fascinating facts to spice up his writing. Like on page 77, "the word pencils means 'little tail'" or "the eraser substance was called rubber because it was used to rub out pencil marks...". This guy knows his pencils facts, and I was surprised by how interesting I found them to be!
I found Baron's overall point to be that new technologies are often "fought against or embraced" and it isn't until years later that we can reflect on how silly we were to fight against something so useful. People thought pencils were bad, that telephones were pointless, and that calculators would stop people from knowing basic arithmetic. All the hype boils down to fear of the unknown, in my opinion.


And to think, the only pencil I use is a mechanical one.

Short-hand Identity

This essay spoke to me on many different levels. I love her style! The splices of Spanish throughout really paint a picture of the broken-ness within her language. And the quotes that she popped in were very powerful. The reading was jolting in the way it skipped from her pros, to Spanish, to a quote or saying, and then back to her pros again. This made for an interesting read- I certainly was never bored.
There was a point on page 43, in the paragraph that begins with "As a culture...", where she tries to define what she calls herself. She has many different answers, and she says many of them are cop-outs. Her continued reference of copping out proves the point that the answer to this question is a detailed one that would require a lengthy explanation for full comprehension. Her replies would be a short-hand form for easy association. But identity, who we are, is not a simple answer.

And I loved the sentence: "Wild tongues can't be tamed, they can only be cut out." She is a very powerful writer.

the illiterate "reader"

The reader of a written language and the illiterate "reader" are of two different ilks. Having been a reader of written language most of my life, I have a very small grasp of what it must be like to be illiterate. This reading, "A World Without Print" by Victoria Purcell-Gates, gave me insight to the illiterate's experience. The illiterate "reader" is taking in a different kind of information than that of a literate person. They are not readers of words, but readers of colors, shapes and sizes. Whereas a simple word on the front of a store can tell a person what to expect in that store, the illiterate person needs to look at clues. They look at pictures in the store window, look at the type of sign that is posted and the size of the store, all in order to get clues of what they can find there. The external information is necessary to understand what one word can explain. The illiterate person must be fluent in deductive reasoning.
This reading shed light on what the thought-process of an illiterate person is and what the daily trials of a life without written language can be.

Average Rose

I enjoyed reading "I Just Wanna Be Average" by Mike Rose. His style of writing is direct and entertaining to read. I couldn't help but feel slightly infuriated at the system that misplaced him into the wrong school, something that Rose himself speaks of somewhat passively. On the other hand, I suppose that being sent to that school has turned him into the writer he is today. One could speculate ad nauseum on whether or not he would have turned out differently, better or worse, had he been sent to the right school.
One thing that I found particularly interesting was on page 169 when Rose is describing the thought process of a student who is having trouble with their homework problems. The student is recognizing the fact that these problems should be easy because they know they have seen them before, know that they have learned how to solve them before. Spoiler alert: The student eventually gives up. The hopelessness within the student was heart-breaking. Rose describes that there is "embarrassment and frustration and, not surprisingly, some anger in being reminded once again of long-standing inadequacies." Any student who has ever struggled in any subject knows how this feels. The specifics may change, but the hopeless feeling of never being able to understand something wears on a person's psyche. Which is why, Rose explains and I agree, that many students come to believe that their inadequacies are "inborn, organic".
I think the lesson that I learned from this essay is that when I am a teacher I will reconsider a student whom I don't think is trying. Effort does not merely mean there is a solid, physical outcome that can be graded. Effort is in the thought-process that the student had in trying to solve the problem. Granted, this student gave up, but they tried. In the end they thought it was hopeless, which led to them giving up. I know that I don't want any of my students feeling hopeless in my class (or ever, really). Every student deserves the opportunity to have their efforts recognized and to have that which they think is hopeless become something they can feel confident of.

The end of education?

The last sentence of The Achievement of Desire by Richard Rodriguez reads: "It would require many more years of schooling (an inevitable miseducation) in which I came to trust the silence of reading and the habit of abstracting from immediate experience- moving away from a life of closeness and immediacy I remembered with my parents, growing older- before I turned unafraid to desire the past, and thereby achieved what had eluded me for so long- the end of education." Rodriguez, now comfortable and confident in his education, and accepting in his relationship with his parents, believes he has reached "the end of education." Therefore, in his mind, education is never fully attained until the self is comfortable with the knowledge it has gained and the relationships it has sacrificed. I wonder if his meaning is intended for all students, or only for "scholarship boys". I must admit that I find his "end of education" premise a rather unappealing one. Isn't education continuous- a never-ending process? To say that education has an end implies an all-knowing state of mind. Surely, I am misinterpreting this last sentence and deriving some other meaning that was not intended. However, it struck me in such a way I couldn't help but comment on it.

After reading “Inventing the University” by David Bartholomae it is rather difficult to write a response without feeling insecure. As enjoyable and witty of a read as it was, I couldn’t help but notice that he was referring directly to the position I find myself in now, and speaking somewhat negatively of it. As a writer in a college setting it seems nearly impossible to not put on certain airs, to not strive for a higher level of communication in the very way that Bartholomae stated as "though [we] are members of the academy." Now that I have to write about my own experiences as a writer in school I can't help but be hyper-aware of my own writing style and the faults within it. This blog is a warm-up of sorts before tackling the assignment as a whole. Wish me luck!

I do not have "On Bullshit" yet, but Amazon said it should be arriving soon. Meanwhile, I have had the essays, "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan and "From Outside, In" by Barbara Mellix, to occupy my time. Both were an interesting read and both followed the same premise: language at home for them was embarrassing so they tried hard to overcome that language, and only through that process did they come to respect the language that they were formerly embarrassed of. I liked Mellix's essay more because she conveyed the nervousness of what it was like to speak "formally" so well. I felt her unease in those situations.
While reading these essays I came up with an analogy that I liked: language is just like the clothes we wear. At home you can wear sweatpants and slippers, and you can speak more comfortably. But elsewhere, in more formal settings, language becomes more polished and proper, as do the clothes we wear. Mellix was often the most uncomfortable with her speech when she was in her "Sunday's best"- the desire to sound her best while she was dressed in her best. So I can imagine that her feelings of discomfort were figurative, as well as literal. I can also imagine that when the ability to speak as well as you are dressed becomes habit, you may look back fondly at those comfy sweatpants.