Reflective Exercises on Rhetorical and Analytical Reading ProcesseOne method of evaluating whether students are comprehending and engaging carefully with textual materials is to provide opportunities for reflection on their reading and analytical processes through some type of informal survey. Because I take (and teach) a rhetorical approach to writing, I am often curious to learn more about students’ understanding of the function of rhetoric in written texts—both the readings as well as their own writing. My surveys include questions such as the ones below and responses to the questions give me a rich and detailed picture of students’ reading and writing processes.
- Prior to writing this essay how familiar were you with textual analysis?
- What challenges and difficulties did you face as you analyzed one text?
- How familiar were you with using ideas and concepts from one text to analyze another?
- What were the challenges of this task?
- With which aspects of the essay’s task were you most familiar? Add additional comments below.
- Engaging with key concepts from a text (Lloyd Bitzer)
- Analyzing a text (Gore, Carr, or Nestle) using another (Bitzer
- Developing your own ideas in response to Gore, Carr, or Nestle
- What is your understanding of how rhetoric functions (focus on rhetorical situation, audience, and exigence) in the texts you have read and you have written?
- How effectively have you recognized these elements in texts you have read? What challenges have you faced?
- Prior to writing this essay, how familiar were you with analyzing an image using ideas from a written text?
- Prior to writing this essay, how familiar were you with analyzing an image using ideas from two written texts?
- What aspects of this analysis–using ideas from two texts to examine an image–did you find to be most challenging?
- Which aspects of the tasks associated with the assignment were you most comfortable with and therefore able to achieve with ease?
- Describing and analyzing the image
- Analyzing the image using one textual source (Scholes or Theroux or Brownmiller)
- Analyzing the image using two or more textual sources (Scholes AND Theroux and/or Brownmiller)
- Developing your own ideas about connections between image and texts that emerged from the analysis