Council 1

Shernari Council 25 August 13 Dr. Rieman ENGL 1101 Response to Reading Harvey and Daniels 1. Whats your rhetorical/critical reading of this piece? Think about who wrote it, to what audience, for what purpose, using what moves (language use, structure, organization etc.). Support why you think what you do. I think this piece was written primarily for teachers and possibly an adult that has children. My assumption is based off the examples included in the text. When trying to explain this process of thinking rather than just reading it seemed as if each example included children in a classroom. Stephanie Harvey and Harvey Daniels show the reader how reading and exploring text are detrimental in excelling in academic success. They chose to show this through charts and real life examples of how reading really helps students grow and develop. 2. Harvey and Daniels claim the following: the prime determinant of understanding is prior knowledge. Period, point blank, case closed (22). Respond to this claim, thinking about your own experience as a reader in different disciplines or as a newcomer to a topic. I do agree with Harvey and Daniels claim relating to prior knowledge. If you already know some details on a topic learning more in depth about it is far easier because you have a little bit of information to connect and relate it too. For example in high school I took Spanish as my foreign language class of choice. I had no prior knowledge about the language, so it was a great challenge for me. However, with the constant reading and review of the language and finding ways to tie into my language and culture things begin to get a lot easier. 3. Where did you do this reading? What time of the day? Was it the same or different place and/or time as you read your last article for this class? What about the time and place helped or hindered your reading experience?

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I did this reading over a period of two days in which both times I was in my room. I chose to do my reading in the same place as my last article because I found it to be a comfy and relaxing environment. Since I did my reading at night my roommates were also trying to finish homework therefore it was very quite which helped my experience a lot.

4.

List three words or concepts that you were previously unfamiliar with, define them, and state where you figured out their meaning. - A phosphodiester is a bond that shares a group of covalent bonds between phosphate and carbohydrates. Cognitive is an adjective that means that something is in relation to something else. Burgeoning was also a word that I was unsure of its definition. It means for something to thrive or increase rapidly. All three of my words were defined by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary.

5. What personal experiences can you relate to this text? I agree and have learned that casual reading can improve your overall academic abilities. My cousin enjoyed reading books and choose it as a leisure activity, where as I was not a fan of reading. On her SATs she earned almost a perfect score, however I had quite a bit of trouble. I decided that I would read one book a week until I retook the test to try and expand my vocabulary. Although I still dont enjoy reading I did find that I scored far better after I begin to read more frequently. 6. What are your suggestions for how we may focus class discussion today? Im still confused to what an inquiry circle is made up of. If we could go into a detailed discussion about exactly what this study method is I believe it would help me understand the subject better.