Post #5 - Callie

I find that the distinctions between reading types lend themselves well to what we see on a daily basis in the writing center. Often, students are more accustomed to skimming a text, and are challenged when asked to do a "deep" reading. The subsequent lack of understanding is evident when said students attempt to write a paper.

Additionally, students who are majoring in fields that require more rote memorization (ie engineering, nursing, etc) have a much harder time when asked to conduct a deep reading. I think a large part of this is that they are simply not asked to do this in their major classes. I wonder to what extent this skill will go on to benefit them in their "real life" careers, or whether we are simply training them to pass Rhetoric. Obviously to me there is innate value in being able to read a text well and understand it on a deeper level, and to then construct a coherent argument in a well-written paper, but I don't know that we can expect every student to be committed to that. On the flip side, though, there are almost no fields in which writing is not critical.

I've been thinking a lot about this because I have a tutee (is that right? That feels wrong) who is a nursing student and often laments to me about the analysis that her rhetoric professor requires of a text, and the fact that she was simply never really taught how to do that.