2. CONTENTS
• In this lecture, you will find:
• Reasons why you’re doing this reading
• Some context for the article
• A short summary to help you understand the article
• Due dates for the reading
• A doggo
3. WHY READ THIS ARTICLE?
• From the assignment prompt: “This assignment asks you to practice
the rhetorical reading strategies that Haas and Flower describe in
‘Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning’ (p.
432). As a college writer, you need to make rhetorical reading a
normal habit” (Wardle and Downs 501).
• Reading this article by Haas and Flower will not only help you
understand the concept of rhetorical reading, it will help you complete
this assignment successfully.
4. SOME CONTEXT FOR THE AUTHORS
• Christina Haas, the lead author on this article, holds a PhD in rhetoric from
Carnegie Mellon University. She is currently a professor of Writing Studies at the
University of Minnesota.
• Linda Flower holds a PhD from Rutgers University and is a professor of English at
Carnegie Mellon University
• I’m telling you this because this establishes both their credibility as well as their
authority to speak on the topic of rhetorical reading strategies.
• Any time you’re reading a scholarly article, it’s a solid idea to do a little research on
the author(s).
5. SOME CONTEXT FOR THE ARTICLE
• Though it’s been reprinted in our textbook, this article originally appeared in the
journal College Composition and Communication, which is one of the most widely-
read and widely-respected journals in the field of writing studies. It’s published by
the Conference on College Composition and Communication, which is a national
organization of teachers, scholars, and writers.
• In other words, you’re about to read some expert-to-expert communication. People
who publish in CCC are legit.
6. FURTHER CONTEXT FOR THE ARTICLE
• One thing to keep in mind is that this article was published in 1988, when Haas and
Flower were postdoctoral researchers at Carnegie Mellon University. Carnegie
Mellon, as the textbook states in the introduction to this article, “has been the scene
of a lot of research on artificial intelligence—how to make machines able to think
like humans. In research conducted around the time this article was written, human
brains were often though of as ‘information processors’ much like computers—
working with memory, central processors, inputs and outputs, and sensory data.
Because this way of understanding the human mind was ‘in the air’ (everyone was
talking more or less this way) at that time, Haas and Flower’s article carries some of
that sense, too, and, for better or worse, they tend to talk about minds as quite
machine-like.”
7. FURTHER CONTEXT FOR THE ARTICLE
(CONT’D)
• As the textbook states: “Knowing this, you understand a little more of the context of
this article, and (Haas and Flower would say) that means you’re a little better
equipped to make sense of it.”
• I couldn’t agree more.
8. A SHORT SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE
• Haas and Flower argue that more experienced readers have different reading
strategies than less experienced ones. These strategies, which they call rhetorical
reading strategies, allow more experienced readers to gain a much richer
understanding of a text that goes beyond understanding its content. They write, “To
interpret any sophisticated text seems to require not only careful reading and prior
knowledge, but the ability to read the text on several levels, to build multi-faceted
representations. A text is understood not only as content and information, but also
as the result of someone’s intentions, as a part of a larger discourse world, and as
having real effects on real readers” (437).
9. A SHORT SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE
(CONT’D)
• Part of Haas and Flower’s research question had to do with the fact that different
readers can arrive at vastly different conclusions about or interpretations of a text. Why,
they wondered, is that?
• So they gathered several readers, some more experienced (graduate students) and some
less experienced (college freshmen) and asked them all to read the same text: part of an
introduction to a book on educational psychology.
• Haas and Flower analyzed the text beforehand and made a short list of its essential
claims, including things that were explicitly stated in the text as well as things that
were implied. The point of the study was to find out whether the readers could pick out
those essential claims, and how quickly.
10. A SHORT SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE
(CONT’D)
• The results were not surprising to them. The more experienced readers understood
not only what the text stated explicitly, but also an implied claim that wasn’t stated
directly. The less experienced readers were not able to identify the implied claim.
• Rhetorical reading strategies, then, are essential, as they allow a reader to analyze
rather than simply summarize or paraphrase a text.
• This has implications for teachers in particular, they argue, whose responsibility it
is to model these strategies for students.
11. READING THE ACTUAL ARTICLE
• When I was a student at a community college, I took my first Shakespeare class. The teacher told
us to get New Folger Library editions of all the plays, and I complied, because I am An Excellent
Student. I didn’t think much of it until I opened the books and discovered that there was a short
summary before each scene. Having those short scene summaries was stupid helpful, because I had
an idea of what I was about to read going in. I hope that this summary will be similarly helpful to
you guys as you read this article.
• If you have your textbook, you can find this article on pages 432-449. If you don’t have your
textbook, here is a link to the original article on JSTOR (you’ll need to log in using your WSU ID
and password): https://www.jstor.org/stable/358026?casa_token=d1uG78y2YxUAAAAA:vL8pXP-
HLzeqLyCm-LZgJt0rp7w7XXza2wyAWXpDUZlGyrF3aTJ9ox0F6wbqyghfcXO3IdYyqL9U_zVh-
PdXp1a7bVroGCB8j7I3VQxJLh041Roh6KDb&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
12. DUE DATES
• This reading is due on Sunday, March 29. You will complete a Blackboard post about
it. You will have a 24-hour grace period.
• When you’re finished reading, read Lecture Four: Going Back to the Prompt. This
lecture will be available on Thursday, March 26, but don’t read it until you’ve
finished Haas and Flower.
13. WHAT’S NEXT?
• In the next lecture, we’ll go back and look at the prompt again now that we have
some better knowledge of the kinds of reading strategies that Haas and Flower
discuss.
14. DOGGO BREAK!
You thought I forgot.
This is Lucy, one of my brother-
in-law’s dogs. She’s a French
mastiff, which means she looks
like she’s going to eat your face
but really just wants to sit in
your lap and make grunt-y,
snuffle-y noises.
