Haas Reading Questions 1
- Haas talks about how at the college level in order for students to become literate you have to be able to learn how to go about texts within a disciplinary field. Haas means that as a student you have to have to knowledge of the common elements that fall in to that disciplinary field. “One of the things students of science must become privy to, as part of their disciplinary education, is this rhetorical, contingent nature of written scientific discourse”(45). The common knowledge needed to become literate is needed to enter the discourse of being a literate college student.
- An Autonomous text is the belief that texts are written with out support from context. As Haas first defines it as “beginning college students approach academic tasks as if they believe that texts are autonomous and context free” (Haas 46). It is the way students originally look at texts, with the thought that there is no connections between the text and the author or even connections of text-to-text. Haas believes this is a myth because there is always contextual support between the author and their text. I agree with her view on this because writers do not just write without support from context.
- Haas’s story about a random college student named Eliza is a good study to show what Haas is talking about. For her first two years of college she was not able to see the “frame” of the texts but rather she just tried to memorize what she needed to know, and would not make connections in the texts. “Eliza seemed to view reading and writing as unconnected to the scientific work”(69. College students progress with reading and writing by starting to view them as multiply connected with authors, scientists, readers, and historically.
- The rhetorical frame of rhetorical reading is the prior knowledge of a few elements that are key to the reading. “Elements of the rhetorical frame include participants, their relationships and motives, and several layers of context.” (48). Its basically the background knowledge of what you’re going to read. That is how it makes sense to me, this would help you understand the material better.
- There are many relations between Gee and Haas, especially when Haas mentions rhetorical reading. Gee’s description of how to enter a discourse suggests that you must have prior knowledge of a certain discourse in order to enter a discourse. You should have some knowledge of the participants, the way they act, and their beliefs. Haas mentions a similar method when you rhetorically read. She mentions the idea of rhetorically framing. “Elements of the rhetorical frame include participants, their relationships and motives, and several layers of context.” (48). These are prior elements that if have prior knowledge of you will be able to understand then contents better. Haas then uses discourses as an example. “When readers approach a discourse situation, they presumably have some knowledge or representation of the participants, including the identity, knowledge, and background of author and intended readers.” (48). Gee and Haas connect on the idea of needing prior knowledge for better success.
- ENG110i
