- Haas starts her article saying that to become a literate college student you need to master the idea of being able to readand interact with very complex text. She explains this further when she discusses the use of autonomous, which is what students tend to see a scientific text as and do not interact with it. Haas describes autonomous as “strict new critical readings of literary works; tests that ask students to recall and reiterate informational content only.” (46) Meaning that the literacy work is for memorizing and nothing else. However what Haas is saying is that no matter what text you are reading you need to interact with it and understand there is more to it than memorization. Which is key to becoming a strong literate college student.
- When Haas says the myth of autonomous text she is saying that it is a myth that any text you read is autonomous, because even if factual books someone wrote and has a meaning. Haas describes this situation by students assigned the author a gender to help better visualize the why, ” During his reading, he assigned the author both a gender ‘this guy’ and a profession, ‘he is some kind of scientist.”(49) This is an example that Haas used to show that autonomous reading is a myth and that if you use the right reading techniques every text is more than just facts.
- Haas study shows that if a college student starts to gain a better understanding of how to really read and understand complex texts, they start to be able to succeed at their studies and participate more in more advanced studies. For example when Eliza starts to be able to understand what the other professors in her lab are talking about. “she viewed texts as multiply connected- to authors and scientists, to other readers, and to historical circumstances-and even demonstrated some understanding of her own connections both to the scientific texts and to objects of her own research.”(69) Meaning as you go through your college career you being to see the connections different scientific texts have to each other. As well as how to relate their findings to your own. Or how to improve yours to match their quality of findings/ research.
- The rhetorical frame is a way to read in depth of scientific texts that normally people just use to memorize facts. Haas defines a rhetorical frame as, “helps readers account for the motives underlying textual acts and their outcomes. Elements of the rhetorical frame include participants, their relationships and motives and several layers of context.”(48) If students use this in reading they will be able to easily grasp the purpose and therefore the information they are supposed to learn.
- Haas uses some elements of Discourse in her explanation of the rhetorical frame. She first explains rhetorical frame as being able to read in depth of factual texts. As well as that using this method is a new Discourse on its own. “Knowledge of contexts will aid a readers interpretation, and indeed, knowing something about cultural and historical contexts can reveal a great deal about discourse participants and vice versa.”(48) If you know and understand the background of a social Discourse reading scientific textbooks will be easier to understand and create ideas about. This is important because when you read scientific texts that are very complex it is important to know the background of the Discourse so you will have some idea of how scientist and scientific authors talk and write. This relates to Gee, who writes about Discourse and how difficult it is to join one. We see Gee talk about how you learn about Discourses through social practices which is how people learn about cultural and historical context. So it relates to Haas in they both know you must have a social context to understand and join a Discourse, which can be acquired through,” apprenticeship into social practices through scaffolded and supported interaction with people who have already mastered the Discourse.” (7) This is how people gain background understand of secondary Discourse practices. Which is how Eliza was able to advance her understanding of biology and advance her participation in the Discourse.
ENG110J
