Rethinking dogma : an argument for teaching reading in freshman composition.

Abstract

"Critical" and "contributive" reading are two levels of reading more engaged than the "informational" reading most college freshmen do. Critical reading interrogates the text, analyzing it and investigating its origins and purposes. Contributive reading goes a step farther, consciously integrating the text at hand into the total fabric ofthe reader's knowledge on the subject, synergistically connecting the text to previous readings. Those who bemoan freshmen's lack of reading ability and interest fail to consider that students are never taught critical and contributive reading. In an increasingly oral culture that values informational reading, students in fact receive no formal reading instruction after sixth grade. Among the data demonstrating the results is my own survey of Emporia State University's Fall 1998 freshman composition students. Teaching reading in freshman composition involves making students conscious of their reading by carefully modeling and studying the behaviors of critical and contributive readers. After limited explicit instruction, reading can remain a background issue, occasionally foregrounded to reemphasize its importance. Despite a pedagogical paradigm that for the last 30 years has insisted otherwise, freshman composition is the best place for reading instruction. Composition and reading instruction both seek to equip students to join academic conversations and contribute to their fields. Both fields study texts as texts. English departments, too, would benefit from taking charge of college reading instruction. Lastly, teaching reading in freshman composition works when it's tried. Most objections to such a strategy arise from expressivist pedagogy (e.g., students should "produce" texts, not "consume" them) and concerns about abuses of reading in the composition course (e.g., the composition course could become a literature course). But while further research will help determine the best strategies for integrating reading and writing, the need to boost freshmen reading ability demands that we begin that integration now.