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As you compose your narrative, look closely at some of the…
As you compose your narrative, look closely at some of the “writerly choices” you see try making at least one of those choices in your own writing. So try something! Highlight the new move you’re making in your draft so that it stands out.
THE READING ARTICLE IS BELOW
PLZ MAKE THE WRITERLY CHOICE OF THE ABOVE LINK GIVEN THE BELOW IS JUST AN EXAMPLE
BELOW IS AN EXAMPLE OF A WRITERLY CHOICES FROM A DIFFERENT READING NAMED HOW TO READ LIKE A WIRTER BY MIKE BUNN
THE BELOW IS THE READING ARTICLE-
How to Read Like a Writer
Mike Bunn
In 1997, I was a recent college graduate living in London for six months and working at the Palace Theatre owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The Palace was a beautiful red brick, four-story theatre in the heart of London’s famous West End, and eight times a week it housed a three- hour performance of the musical Les Miserables. Because of antiquated fire-safety laws, every theatre in the city was required to have a certain number of staff members inside watching the performance in case of an emergency.
My job (in addition to wearing a red tuxedo jacket) was to sit inside the dark theater with the patrons and make sure nothing went wrong. It didn’t seem to matter to my supervisor that I had no training in security and no idea where we kept the fire extinguishers. I was pretty sure that if there was any trouble I’d be running down the back stairs, leaving the patrons to fend for themselves. I had no intention of dying in a bright red tuxedo.
There was a Red Coat stationed on each of the theater’s four floors, and we all passed the time by sitting quietly in the back, reading books with tiny flashlights. It’s not easy trying to read in the dim light of a theatreflashlight or no flashlightand it’s even tougher with shrieks and shouts and gunshots coming from the stage. I had to focus intently on each and every word, often rereading a single sentence several times. Sometimes I got distracted and had to re-read entire paragraphs. As I struggled to read in this environment, I began to realize that the way I was readingone word at a timewas exactly the same way that the author had written the text. I realized writing is a word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence process. The intense concentration required to read in the theater helped me recognize some of the interesting ways that authors string words into phrases into paragraphs into entire books.
I came to realize that all writing consists of a series of choices. I was an English major in college, but I don’t think I ever thought much about reading. I read all the time. I read for my classes and on the computer and sometimes for fun, but I never really thought about the important connections between reading and writing, and how reading in a particular way could also make me a better writer.
What Does It Mean to Read Like a Writer?
When you Read Like a Writer (RLW) you work to identify some of the choices the author made so that you can better understand how such choices might arise in your own writing. The idea is to carefully examine the things you read, looking at the writerly techniques in the text in order to decide if you might want to adopt similar (or the same) techniques in your writing.
You are reading to learn about writing. Instead of reading for content or to better understand the ideas in the writing (which you will automatically do to some degree anyway), you are trying to understand how the piece of writing was put together by the author and what you can learn about writing by reading a particular text. As you read in this way, you think about how the choices the author made and the techniques that he/she used are influencing your own responses as a reader. What is it about the way this text is written that makes you feel and respond the way you do?
The goal as you read like a writer is to locate what you believe are the most important writerly choices represented in the textchoices as large as the overall structure or as small as a single word used only onceto consider the effect of those choices on potential readers (including yourself). Then you can go one step further and imagine what different choices the author might have made instead, and what effect those different choices would have on readers.
Say you’re reading an essay in class that begins with a short quote from President Barack Obama about the war in Iraq. As a writer, what do you think of this technique? Do you think it is effective to begin the essay with a quote? What if the essay began with a quote from someone else? What if it was a much longer quote from President Obama, or a quote from the President about something other than the war?
And here is where we get to the most important part: Would you want to try this technique in your own writing?
Would you want to start your own essay with a quote? Do you think it would be effective to begin your essay with a quote from President Obama? What about a quote from someone else?
You could make yourself a list. What are the advantages and disadvantages of starting with a quote? What about the advantages and disadvantages of starting with a quote from the President? How would other readers respond to this technique? Would certain readers (say Democrats or liberals) appreciate an essay that started with a quote from President Obama better than other readers (say Republicans or conservatives)? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of starting with a quote from a less divisive person? What about starting with a quote from someone more divisive?
…Author and professor Wendy Bishop explains how her reading process changed when she began to read like a writer:
It wasn’t until I claimed the sentence as my area of desire, interest, and expertiseuntil I wanted to be a writer writing betterthat I had to look underneath my initial readings . . . I started asking, howhow did the writer get me to feel, how did the writer say something so that it remains in my memory when many other things too easily fall out, how did the writer communicate his/her intentions about genre, about irony? (119-20)
Bishop moved from simply reporting her personal reactions to the things she read to attempting to uncover how the author led her (and other readers) to have those reactions. This effort to uncover how authors build texts is what makes Reading Like a Writer so useful for student writers.
How Is RLW Different from “Normal” Reading?
Most of the time we read for information. We read a recipe to learn how to bake lasagna. We read the sports page to see if our school won the game, Facebook to see who has commented on our status update, a history book to learn about the Vietnam War, and the syllabus to see when the next writing assignment is due. Reading Like a Writer asks for something very different.
In 1940, a famous poet and critic named Allen Tate discussed two different ways of reading:
There are many ways to read, but generally speaking there are two ways. They correspond to the two ways in which we may be interested in a piece of architecture. If the building has Corinthian columns, we can trace the origin and development of Corinthian columns; we are interested as historians. But if we are interested as architects, we may or may not know about the history of the Corinthian style; we must, however, know all about the construction of the building, down to the last nail or peg in the beams. We have got to know this if we are going to put up buildings ourselves. (506)
While I don’t know anything about Corinthian columns (and doubt that I will ever want to know anything about Corinthian columns), Allen Tate’s metaphor of reading as if you were an architect is a great way to think about RLW. When you read like a writer, you are trying to figure out how the text you are reading was constructed so that you learn how to “build” one for yourself. Author David Jauss makes a similar comparison when he writes that “reading won’t help you much unless you learn to read like a writer. You must look at a book the way a carpenter looks at a house someone else built, examining the details in order to see how it was made” (64).
Perhaps I should change the name and call this Reading Like an Architect, or Reading Like a Carpenter. In a way those names make perfect sense. You are reading to see how something was constructed so that you can construct something similar yourself.
Why Learn to Read Like a Writer?
For most college students RLW is a new way to read, and it can be difficult to learn at first. Making things even more difficult is that your college writing instructor may expect you to read this way for class but never actually teach you how to do it. He or she may not even tell you that you’re supposed to read this way. This is because most writing instructors are so focused on teaching writing that they forget to show students how they want them to read.
…In addition to the fact that your college writing instructor may expect you to read like a writer, this kind of reading is also one of the very best ways to learn how to write well. Reading like a writer can help you understand how the process of writing is a series of making choices, and in doing so, can help you recognize important decisions you might face and techniques you might want to use when working on your own writing. Reading this way becomes an opportunity to think and learn about writing.
Charles Moran, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, urges us to read like writers because:
When we read like writers we understand and participate in the writing. We see the choices the writer has made, and we see how the writer has coped with the consequences of those choices . . . We “see” what the writer is doing because we read as writers; we see because we have written ourselves and know the territory, know the feel of it, know some of the moves ourselves. (61)
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What Are Some Questions to Ask Before You Start Reading?
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Among the contextual factors you’ll want to consider before you even start reading are:
Do you know the author’s purpose for this piece of writing?
Do you know who the intended audience is for this piece of writing?
It may be that you need to start reading before you can answer these first two questions, but it’s worth trying to answer them before you start. For example, if you know at the outset that the author is trying to reach a very specific group of readers, then his or her writerly techniques may seem more or less effective than if he/she was trying to reach a more general audience. Similarlyreturning to our earlier example of beginning an essay with a quote from President Obama about the war in Iraqif you know that the author’s purpose is to address some of the dangers and drawbacks of warfare, this may be a very effective opening. If the purpose is to encourage Americans to wear sunscreen while at the beach this opening makes no sense at all. One former student, Lola, explained that most of her reading assignments in college writing classes were designed “to provoke analysis and criticisms into the style, structure, and purpose of the writing itself.”
In What Genre Is This Written?
Another important thing to consider before reading is the genre of the text. Genre means a few different things in college English classes, but it’s most often used to indicate the type of writing: a poem, a newspaper article, an essay, a short story, a novel, a legal brief, an instruction manual, etc. Because the conventions for each genre can be very different (who ever heard of a 900-page newspaper article?), techniques that are effective for one genre may not work well in another. Many readers expect poems and pop songs to rhyme, for example, but might react negatively to a legal brief or instruction manual that did so.
Another former student, Mike, comments on how important the genre of the text can be for reading:
I think a lot of the way I read, of course, depends on the type of text I’m reading. If I’m reading philosophy, I always look for signaling words (however, therefore, furthermore, despite) indicating the direction of the argument . . . when I read fiction or creative nonfiction, I look for how the author inserts dialogue or character sketches within narration or environmental observation. After reading To the Lighthouse [sic] last semester, I have noticed how much more attentive I’ve become to the types of narration (omniscient, impersonal, psychological, realistic, etc.), and how these different approaches are utilized to achieve an author’s overall effect.
Although Mike specifically mentions what he looked for while reading a published novel, one of the great things about RLW is that it can be used equally well with either published or student-produced writing.
What Are Questions to Ask As You Are Reading?
It is helpful to continue to ask yourself questions as you read like a writer. As you’re first learning to read in this new way, you may want to have a set of questions written or typed out in front of you that you can refer to while reading. Eventuallyafter plenty of practiceyou will start to ask certain questions and locate certain things in the text almost automatically. Remember, for most students this is a new way of reading, and you’ll have to train yourself to do it well. Also keep in mind that you’re reading to understand how the text was written how the house was builtmore than you’re trying to determine the meaning of the things you read or assess whether the texts are good or bad.
First, return to two of the same questions I suggested that you consider before reading:
What is the author’s purpose for this piece of writing?
Who is the intended audience?
Think about these two questions again as you read. It may be that you couldn’t really answer them before, or that your ideas will change while reading. Knowing why the piece was written and who it’s for can help explain why the author might have made certain choices or used particular techniques in the writing, and you can assess those choices and techniques based in part on how effective they are in fulfilling that purpose and/or reaching the intended audience.
Beyond these initial two questions, there is an almost endless list of questions you might ask regarding writing choices and techniques. Here are some of the questions that one former student, Clare, asks herself:
When reading I tend to be asking myself a million questions. If I were writing this, where would I go with the story? If the author goes in a different direction (as they so often do) from what I am thinking, I will ask myself, why did they do this? What are they telling me?
Clare tries to figure out why the author might have made a move in the writing that she hadn’t anticipated, but even more importantly, she asks herself what she would do if she were the author. Reading the text becomes an opportunity for Clare to think about her own role as an author.
Here are some additional examples of the kinds of questions you might ask yourself as you read:
How effective is the language the author uses? Is it too formal? Too informal? Perfectly appropriate?
…
What kinds of evidence does the author use to support his/her claims? Does he/she use statistics? Quotes from famous people? Personal anecdotes or personal stories? Does he/she cite books or articles?
How appropriate or effective is this evidence? Would a different type of evidence, or some combination of evidence, be more effective?
To some extent the kinds of questions you ask should be determined by the genre of writing you are reading. For example, it’s probably worth examining the evidence that the author uses to support his/ her claims if you’re reading an opinion column, but less important if you’re reading a short story. An opinion column is often intended to convince readers of something, so the kinds of evidence used are often very important. A short story may be intended to convince readers of something, sometimes, but probably not in the same way. A short story rarely includes claims or evidence in the way that we usually think about them.
Are there places in the writing that you find confusing? What about the writing in those places makes it unclear or confusing?
It’s pretty normal to get confused in places while reading, especially while reading for class, so it can be helpful to look closely at the writing to try and get a sense of exactly what tripped you up. This way you can learn to avoid those same problems in your own writing.
How does the author move from one idea to another in the writing? Are the transitions between the ideas effective? How else might he/she have transitioned between ideas instead?
Notice that in these questions I am encouraging you to question whether aspects of the writing are appropriate and effective in addition to deciding whether you liked or disliked them. You want to imagine how other readers might respond to the writing and the techniques you’ve identified. Deciding whether you liked or disliked something is only about you; considering whether a technique is appropriate or effective lets you contemplate what the author might have been trying to do and to decide whether a majority of readers would find the move successful. This is important because it’s the same thing you should be thinking about while you are writing: how will readers respond to this technique I am using, to this sentence, to this word? As you read, ask yourself what the author is doing at each step of the way, and then consider whether the same choice or technique might work in your own writing.
THE BELOW IS THE WRITERLY CHOICES OF THE ABOVE READING (EXAMPLE)
The essay by Mike Bunn offers colorful details to give readers a comprehensive image of the London Palace Theatre. He gives readers detailed information on the theater’s look and location by calling it a “beautiful red brick, four-story theatre in the heart of London’s famous West End.” This authorial decision improves the reader’s comprehension and helps them visualize the scene.
I would emphasize the use of descriptive language to provide readers a sensory experience in order to use this strategy in my own work. For instance, if I were penning a narrative, I may give readers a better idea of a character’s look by describing it. By stimulating the reader’s imagination with descriptive details, this strategy enables readers to engage with the text more fully.
Explanation: Method for answering the query:
1. Recognize the situation: Read and comprehend the provided material, which is an extract from Mike Bunn’s essay on reading like a writer, before moving on.
2. Identify the author’s decision: Identify the precise writing decision Mike Bunn made in the passage. In this instance, it’s the employment of detailed details to portray the London Palace Theatre.
3. Point out the author’s decision: Be sure to emphasize how crucial this authorial decision is to the reader’s enjoyment and comprehension of the book.
Mike Bunn makes a writerly decision in the text by employing vivid adjectives to portray the Palace Theatre in London. This option entails describing the theater in precise terms, such as “beautiful red brick, four-story theatre in the heart of London’s famous West End.” Because of the vivid mental picture that this thorough description helps readers create of the scene, the material is more captivating and immersive.
Examples:
Let’s think about how this writerly decision may be used in a different situation to show it. Let’s say I’m penning a travel piece on a significant city:
The majestic Florence Cathedral, a remarkable illustration of Italian Gothic architecture, is located in the center of Florence, Italy. Visitors are in awe of its marble façade, which is embellished with elaborate sculptures and beautiful rose windows. You can’t help but be mesmerized as you approach the church by the Giotto’s Bell Tower, which stands erect alongside it, with its beautiful embellishments.
In this instance, I use vivid details to pique the reader’s interest and provide a clear image of the Florence Cathedral and its significance.
PLZ DONT TAKE ANY REFERENCE FROM THE ABOVE ARTICLE ITS JUST A EXAMPKE FOR THE WRITER PURPOSE AND TO CLEAR THE WRITER VIEW DONT GET ANY REFERNCE OR EXAMPLE FROM ABOVE TAKE ONLY FROM THE GIVEN LINK OF THE READING
