Response to Haas and Flower, Writing About Writing, pp. 410-427
Help Received: None
After reading Haas and Flower, I realized I am still performing as a student or novice reader. I place a lot of emphasis on the content strategies the author uses, and not nearly enough emphasis on rhetorical strategies. According to the table on page 419, only 1% of questions from novice readers concern the rhetorical strategies of the author, while experienced writers devote 13% of their questions to the topic. Conversely, novice readers place 10% more emphasis on the content strategies than experienced readers. Based on this reading, I can improve my critical reading performance by analyzing the author’s intentions in writing the piece. This will help me to identify claims that are never explicitly stated in the text, a skill characteristic of expert readers.