Thursday, March 5, 2015
Dr. Ries poses a question about difficult texts
Think back to your days in junior high school and high school. What experiences did you have with texts that you found too difficult to read? In which of your classes did you find the texts most difficult to read? How did you approach the task of reading these texts? Did your instructor use any strategies that helped you to better understand the textbook? Share those experiences with us.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Back when I was in high school the text that I had many difficulties with were all written by Shakespeare. Many, many people love his works, however I am not a fan. Im sure he is a brilliant writer just not a favorite for me. Whenever I had to read his stories I knew that I would have to read & re-read just to try to grasp what he was talking about. His works were in Old English style and never made and type of sense to me. (they still do not) I can not remember any method that my teacher tried or did to get us to read or understand our readings better. In my opinion the best thing she did was give us other stories to read.
ReplyDeleteI remember having the most difficulty in English classes with the Charles Dickens novels that were assigned to the class, as well as anything that had to do with math and some of the texts we read in History classes (pretty obvious that English literature is my forte, right?). With the Charles Dickens novels, I mostly found myself uninterested in his readings because of how long and drawn out they seemed to be. I did not care to finish the novels. But because I am an avid reader and do very much enjoy reading, I really just pushed through the readings as best as I could. When it came to math and history, I had a very hard time remembering things and comprehending what I was reading. I can recall one of my math teachers breaking it down very slowly and putting things into simpler and more realistic terms to work with. The other math teachers and the history teachers did not do anything to help me better understand the text. It was up to me to go and find extra help, either by appointment with the teacher or in a tutoring session with a fellow student, if I wanted to gain a better understanding of the text.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I had a reading assignment in class, I could never comprehend the reading. I was just never good at it. Therefore, I did not like reading. That is why I am a math major. The passages I had to read were always to much information for me to absorb and I can never pick out the key points. In class, when we did our readings the teacher would help us pick out the points so I understood everything. However, when it came to reading on my own I struggled. The teacher never helped me with this problem. Whenever I had work to do at home, I would always ask my mom to help me. She gave me one strategy to help me comprehend the readings, she told me to jot down anything that stood out to me or something that I didn't understand and to put it in my own words. This made sense to me because when I put it in my own words it made me think about it more, and I always had it in a simpler version in my notes. It takes me a while to get through the readings but I comprehend it in the end.
ReplyDelete