# 6 John


Too many fishing metaphors! I have observed many of the issues discussed in Bean’s chapter while teaching Rhetoric 1030. Many of the strategies mentioned in the chapter, I already implement in my course; however, it was very useful to examine the ten contributing causes for why students struggle with college reading. I don’t think it was until I got to graduate school that I actually mastered all ten of these issues. Hence, I can identify with undergraduate students who struggle with the ten factors. Quite often, no one instructs undergraduate students on all the reading tricks to help them avoid the ten factors. I recently had a student in my class demonstrate “Difficulty in Assimilating the Unfamiliar.” During class discussion, this student attributed a perspective that she had read in another class to the reading for that day. She attributed a perception that scholars can obtain scholarly objectivity to a scholar that was working against the idea of scholarly objectivity—a grave error.

I think I will implement the “what is says” and “what is does” reading-to-write paragraph activity. This activity would be particularly useful when I assign my students a difficult reading. I find that when it comes to difficult readings, students either give up, because the reading appears too difficult, or they misunderstand the text. This activity will hopefully force students to engage with the text and conduct a closer reading.

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