Blog #3 - Deeper Reading Ch. 4, Critical Encounters Ch. 4

First of all, I wanted to say that I'm enjoying Gallagher's use of metaphors at the beginning of each chapter. The metaphors are a great way to engage a reader right off the bat. He sure knows his reading!
The metaphor where Gallagher compares driving to work and not remembering the trip fit perfectly with how I feel with reading at times (along with probably everyone else). I've experienced both, and both scenarios are very comparable. As a History Major, there have been many times where I've read a 30-page article and, when asked to summarize the article the following day in class, my mind has gone completely blank and I think to myself, "I did read that article, right?" I found Gallagher's tips on how to concentrate on reading helpful, especially the tip about scheduling a block of time that is dedicated to reading. Concentrating on reading isn't always an easy task, especially when life's stresses have a way of creeping into one's mind.
My favourite part about Chapter 4 in the Deeper Reading text was the segment on how it's perfectly acceptable to be confused with a text. If only someone had told me that while we read Shakespeare in high school! English was my best subject all throughout high school, but when we hit Shakespeare I felt like there was something wrong with me. Our class would read a passage together, one of my classmates or the teacher would summarize the passage and we would move on, often leaving me panicked, confused, and feeling like a complete idiot. I think it's important to let students know that everyone, even the brightest students and teachers themselves, have trouble comprehending parts of texts at time. I liked Gallagher's strategies to break down confusion and help students comprehend text, but I feel as though confusion is so common that a course would suffer major content loss if the class always went over the parts that were not understood. What may have been helpful was if Gallagher's provided some insight on how long to take with students, or how to deal with different reading levels in a classroom.
Appleman's text was much more interesting this week. I felt as though it was an extension of the segments on providing background information before reading. Sometimes, when doing the readings, I wonder how much emphasis should be placed on which areas. Students are not supposed to spend too much time relating text to themselves in order to avoid too much introspection and not enough critical thinking about the text. However, I gathered that Appleman meant by examining one's social class, an individual will better relate to a text. I suppose self-reflection and reading require a certain kind of balance.