Writing Quick Start: Reading and Responding to Text
3
Reading and Responding to Text
IN THIS CHAPTER YOU WILL LEARN TO
- understand what academic reading involves and develop an active approach to reading,
- learn how to draw a graphic organizer that will help you grasp both the content and the organization of an assignment,
- learn how to write a paper in response to a reading assignment, and
- learn how to respond effectively to other students’ writing.
WRITING QUICK START
Y
our Mass Communication instructor has asked your class to study the photograph at the right and discuss its meaning. Write a paragraph explaining what the photograph suggests to you about mass communication and evaluate why the instructor might have asked you to study it. Be detailed and specific. Study the photograph’s content, trying to discover what statement it makes about communication.
To explain the photograph, you had to think beyond the obvious. You had to interpret the photograph to arrive at its possible meaning. To complete this analysis, you did two things. First, you understood what the photograph shows: a shepherd using a mobile telephone. Then you evaluated why your instructor asked you to reflect on the photo: He or she probably wanted you to realize how communications have changed in the twenty-first century. Now, people from all walks of life, and all over the globe, communicate using mobile telephones and other devices.
Reading involves a similar process of comprehension and evaluation. First, you must understand what the author says; then you must interpret and respond to what the author means. Both parts of the process are essential.