Ways of Reading and Jane Tompkins

989 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Reading strategies and why they are helpful

Ways of Reading and Jane Tompkins

In the book, Ways of Reading, the authors Bartholomae and Petrosky outline what they describe as a "strong reader". They characterize the attributes that collectively contribute to this title and then talk about the relations between a strong reader and a strong writer. The perspectives that Bartholomae and Petrosky discuss on ideas and textual analysis are very interesting and in point of fact remind me of the thought process of which I use when analyzing a reading.

" Strong readers often read critically, weighing, for example, an author claims and interpretations against evidence-evidence provided by the author in the text, evidence drawn from other sources, or the evidence that is assumed to be part of a reader's own knowledge and experience."(p.12)

The easy way to read a text is to observe the general plot and to formulate ideas about the text through a first reading. A strong reader cannot only observe a reading; they can analyze the text and formulate an opinion through not only their own perspective and opinion, but through utilizing their own ideas as well as those of the authors and societies'. Reading Jane Tompkins's Indians, we find that the "strong reader" description is quickly applicable.

In Tompkins's essay, the reader is fed the façade that Tompkins's is writing on the relations between the Puritans first entering this country and the Native Americans already residing there. Her introduction to this paper is a personal reflection of a memory she has retained since her childhood. The reason for writing this essay she explains, is to prepare for a course she was to be teaching. The essay appears to be that of exceptional quality. Not only does she analyze the sources o...

... middle of paper ...

...eading and studying the definitions set forth by Bartholomae and Petrosky, not only does the reader categorize Tompkins as an effectively strong reader, the readers see two other main points. The first point is that Tompkins's strong writing ability can be directly linked to her ability to read "strongly" based on the ideas of Bartholomae and Petrosky. The final point noticed, was that without either the introduction to Ways of Reading or Indians, either reading would possibly lose validity. Each work studied in this duo, appears to aid the others' ideas and arguments. The analysis and perspectives utilized in Indians are conveyed through the processes described in the introduction to Ways of Reading. Vice versa, the arguments made toward the makeup of a "strong reader" would not have been feasibly possible to illustrate without examples such as Jane Tompkins essay.

Show More
Related

  • A People's History Of The United States By Howard Zinn Book Analysis

    1212 Words  | 3 Pages

    Written sometime after A People’s History of the United States, the play on words might indicate the authors’ intent to refute the biased nature of the older book, and redeem the major players. Chapter one begins covering the year 1492-1707 with the age of European discovery. Schweikart and Allen focus of the catchy phrase “God, glory, and gold” as the central motives for exploration, emphasizing the desire to bring the Gospel to the New World. They paint native settlers as “thieves” and “bloodthirsty killers who pillage for pleasure” (Allen 1). The narrative continues, discussing the explorers from Portugal and Spain and their contact with the Arabs and Africans. The authors quote Columbus as saying “[he] hoped to convert them ‘to our Holy Faith by love rather than by force’” (4) a contrary portrayal to that in A People’s History of the United States. The authors continue on to discuss the French and English and the foundations for success in the New World; how people lived in the Colonial South. They write about the physical labor, the natural resources, and the food. Schweikart and Allen enlighten the readers about early slavery, the start of the House of Burgesses, the founding of Plymouth, Massachusetts, the Pequot Indian War, the English Civil War, Bacon’s Rebellion, Pennsylvania’s settlement, and the

    Read More

  • The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

    1716 Words  | 4 Pages

    In “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson,” Mary Rowlandson, a Puritan mother from Lancaster, Massachusetts, recounts the invasion of her town by Indians in 1676 during “King Philip’s War,” when the Indians attempted to regain their tribal lands. She describes the period of time where she is held under captivity by the Indians, and the dire circumstances under which she lives. During these terrible weeks, Mary Rowlandson deals with the death of her youngest child, the absence of her Christian family and friends, the terrible conditions that she must survive, and her struggle to maintain her faith in God. She also learns how to cope with the Indians amongst whom she lives, which causes her attitude towards them to undergo several changes. At first, she is utterly appalled by their lifestyle and actions, but as time passes she grows dependent upon them, and by the end of her captivity, she almost admires their ability to survive the harshest times with a very minimal amount of possessions and resources. Despite her growing awe of the Indian lifestyle, her attitude towards them always maintains a view that they are the “enemy.”

    Read More

  • How To Read Literature Like A Professor Analysis

    1247 Words  | 3 Pages

    Without much thought, authors use brilliant techniques in order to portray the images and stories that they wish to tell. The novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, by Thomas C Foster, helps readers discover the hidden truths among literature and the brilliant techniques that the authors use as well as learn how to add innovative concepts into their writing in order to portray exactly what they are trying to say. It is evident that in A Thousand Splendid Suns the author, Khaled Hosseini, unconsciously uses some of the brilliant concepts that Foster addresses in his book. Khaled Hosseini, the accomplished author, habitually uses the concepts by Thomas C Foster in How to Read Literature Like a Professor, therefore making Hosseini an iconic author.

    Read More

  • A Different Mirror

    346 Words  | 1 Pages

    In a lively account filled that is with personal accounts and the voices of people that were in the past left out of the historical armament, Ronald Takaki proffers us a new perspective of America’s envisioned past. Mr. Takaki confronts and disputes the Anglo-centric historical point of view. This dispute and confrontation is started in the within the seventeenth-century arrival of the colonists from England as witnessed by the Powhatan Indians of Virginia and the Wamapanoag Indians from the Massachusetts area. From there, Mr. Takaki turns our attention to several different cultures and how they had been affected by North America. The English colonists had brought the African people with force to the Atlantic coasts of America. The Irish women that sought to facilitate their need to work in factory settings and maids for our towns. The Chinese who migrated with ideas of a golden mountain and the Japanese who came and labored in the cane fields of Hawaii and on the farms of California. The Jewish people that fled from shtetls of Russia and created new urban communities here. The Latinos who crossed the border had come in search of the mythic and fabulous life El Norte.

    Read More

  • Lenina And Jinda Comparison Essay

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    John expresses a strong importance for reading in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”. In John’s perspective, reading is so important as it is the only gift his mother ever offered him, and it is the only moment they shared together. His mother was never able to show any form of affection towards him nor invest any time to spend with him. The only shared moments they had were when Linda recalled the past and told him anecdotes or taught him how to read. She also gave him the only book she had as a gift; this being the closest form of affection he has ever received from his mother.

    Read More

  • Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion

    1140 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Any critical reading of a text will be strengthened by a knowledge of how a text is valued by readers in differing contexts."

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of The Joy Of Reading And Writing: Superman And Me?

    1446 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although the greater picture is that reading is fundamental, the two authors have a few different messages that they seek to communicate to their audiences. “The Joy of Reading and Writing” depicts how reading serves as a mechanism to escape the preconceived notions that constrain several groups of people from establishing themselves and achieving success in their lifetimes. “Reading to Write,” on the other hand, offers a valuable advice to aspiring writers. The author suggests that one has to read, read, and read before he or she can become a writer. Moreover, he holds an interesting opinion concerning mediocre writing. He says, “Every book you pick has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books have more to teach than the good ones” (p.221). Although these two essays differ in their contents and messages, the authors use the same rhetorical mode to write their essays. Both are process analyses, meaning that they develop their main argument and provide justification for it step by step. By employing this technique, the two authors create essays that are thoughtful, well supported, and easy to understand. In addition, Alexie and King both add a little personal touch to their writings as they include personal anecdotes. This has the effect of providing support for their arguments. Although the two essays have fairly different messages, the authors make use of anecdotes and structure their writing in a somewhat similar

    Read More

  • The Sovereignty and Goodness of God

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Sovereignty and Goodness of God is a primary source document written in the 17th century, by a well-respected, Puritan woman. This book, written in cahoots with Cotton and Increase Mather, puritan ministers, tells the story of her capture by Indians during King Phillip’s War (1675-1676). For three months, Mary Rowlandson, daughter of a rich landowner, mother of three children, wife of a minister, and a pillar of her community lived among “savage” Indians. This document is important for several reasons. First, it gives us insight into the attitudes, extremes, personalities and “norms” of the Puritan people we learn about in terms of their beliefs, and John Calvin’s “house on a hill”. Beyond that, despite the inevitable exaggerations, this book gives us insight into Indian communities, and how they were run and operated during this time.

    Read More

  • Susan Griffin’s Our Secret and the Film Babel

    2150 Words  | 5 Pages

    Griffin, Susan. “Our Secret”. Ways of Reading Eds. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. Sixth edition. Boston. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2002.

    Read More

  • The Power Of Reading In The Lottery By Frost's The Lottery By Robert Frost

    791 Words  | 2 Pages

    The power of reading may be evident to many people around the world, but to others it may not be realized until that one magnificent work that changes the meaning of literature forever to them. Literature has never been my strong suit, but throughout this course and after many readings, literature began to speak to me. My perception of literature immediately changed after reading the short story The Lottery by Shirley and the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost.

    Read More

  • Read Literature Like A Professor

    328 Words  | 1 Pages

    People read literature an abundance of times, but yet many don’t actually undergo the appreciation of the novel. Some overlook pieces of the novel and consider it insignificant to the whole story because those readers are inexperienced. The book, How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster, allows readers and students to fully comprehend the meaning behind the book, making them assured to read “like a professor”. Letting the reader to go further in depth surely helps their analytical thinking to flourish. Having no boundaries when analyzing, Foster sure provided plenty of creative imagination discussing about archetypes and how we should consider the character’s perspective.

    Read More

  • How James Joyce Challenges His Readers in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake

    2576 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the history of written literature, it is difficult not to notice the authors who expand their reader's style and manner of reading. Some write in  an unusual syntax which forces the reader to utilize new methods of looking at a language; others employ lengthy allusions which oblige the reader to study the same works the author drew from in order to more fully comprehend the text. Some authors use ingenious and complicated plots which warrant several readings to be understood. But few authors have used all these and still more devices to demand more of the reader. James Joyce, writer of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, uses extraordinarily inventive and intricate plot construction, creative and often thought-provoking word constructions, allusions to works both celebrated and recondite, and complex issues and theories when challenging his readers to expand their method of reading.

    Read More

  • Reader Response Criticism

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    Fish’s Reader Response Criticism is composed of two interdependent ideas: first, that the meaning of texts is shaped by the reading experience itself, and second, that these meanings cannot be judged to be correct or incorrect, but merely belonging to one “interpretive community” or another. The first idea may be identified as the executive aspect of Reader Response Criticism because it analyzes the act of reading, while the second idea is the epistemological aspect of the theory because it circumscribes the knowledge we can acquire about a text to the merely relative. Studied independently, each aspect of Reader Response Theory offers by itself strong arguments countervailing the formalist stance of the New Critics. But as we will see, the application of Fish’s theory as a whole creates distinct interpretive communities which can be judged for their relative truth values, which leads to a contradiction: if one interpretive community is closer to “the truth” than another, then either the executive theory is wrong because an objective text exists, or the concept of interpretive community is irrelevant because we can make value judgments about a particular interpretation. At any rate, logic dictates that Fish’s theory be internally consistent, and as shown below, this is simply not the case.

    Read More

  • Reader-oriented Theories and Their Application to Ernest Hemingway’s Hills like white elephants

    2419 Words  | 5 Pages

    Finally we can say that the discussion in the class and the differences in the interpretations showed us clearly the differences between the perceptions of the readers on the same work. In the lights of the reader-oriented theories one can claim that there is no single truth or meaning derived from the text, the responses will change as the readers change.

    Read More

  • The Birth of the Reader of the Critic?

    849 Words  | 2 Pages

    Barthes agrees with many of the methods that Wimsatt and Beardsley advocate in their two essays, such as disregarding the author’s intention, identity and personal history as well as the reader’s personal history and emotional connection to the text. He also asserts the text’s importance above everything else. However, he revises the relationship between the author, critic and reader. While Wimsatt and Beardsley believe the critic is the most important person in the relationship and place the power of interpretation wholly within their hands, Barthes places the power in the reader who he believes should play with the text in order to find an appropriate meaning.

    Read More

More about Ways of Reading and Jane Tompkins

Open Document