{"id":278,"date":"2020-03-13T21:24:20","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T21:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-introtocollegereadingandwriting\/?post_type=chapter&p=278"},"modified":"2020-06-24T18:20:36","modified_gmt":"2020-06-24T18:20:36","slug":"reading-writing-to-react","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-introtocollegereadingandwriting\/chapter\/reading-writing-to-react\/","title":{"raw":"Reading & Writing to React","rendered":"Reading & Writing to React"},"content":{"raw":"

Reading to React<\/h2>\r\nReacting is one of the most basic ways to think critically about a text.\u00a0 Reacting:\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. narrows in on your personal thoughts about the text's ideas,<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. widens out from the text into the realm of your experience, and<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. links your thoughts about the text with your personal experience.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nWhen you react, you combine your personal experience with the text's information by bringing your own experience to the text. (Reacting is the opposite of applying\u2014 when you react, you bring your own experience to the text; when you apply, you bring the text to your own experience.)\r\n\r\nYou may ask and answer the following questions when you react to ideas in a text; you'll see from the list below that reaction questions help you consider and reflect on your personal experience of a text through a lot of why<\/em> and what <\/em>questions:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
    \r\n

    Narrow Questions about the Text<\/h3>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    Wide Questions about your Experience Reading the Text<\/h3>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    Questions Linking the Text with your Personal Experience<\/h3>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n

    What is the author's main idea and purpose?<\/td>\r\nWas the reading difficult or easy for you and why? Did you like or dislike reading the text and why?<\/td>\r\nDo you agree or disagree with the author's main idea and why?<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    What text characteristics stood out to you and why? (e.g., author's content, structure, tone)<\/td>\r\nDid you find any useful information in the text?\u00a0 If so, what, and why is it useful to you?<\/td>\r\nDo you agree or disagree with some of the ideas, information, examples in the text? Why?<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    What types of evidence does the author use? Are these types appropriate?\u00a0 Why or why not?\u00a0 What other evidence would you recommend and why?<\/td>\r\nCan you relate ideas or examples in the text to your own experience?\u00a0 If so, what experiences, and how do they relate?<\/td>\r\nWhat parts of the text provoked some response in you as you read, and immediately after you read?\u00a0 Why?<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    Does the author make any assumptions?\u00a0 If so, what are they, and are they valid assumptions?<\/td>\r\nWould you recommend this text to others?\u00a0 Why or why not?<\/td>\r\nIf you had written this text, what would you have done differently and why?<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
    <\/td>\r\nDid the text change your own thinking about the topic in any way?\u00a0 How?<\/td>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\nAs you can see from the questions above, reacting not only focuses on your own thoughts and response to the content of a text, but also focuses on the reasons why <\/em>you think that way.\r\n\r\nWhat do you do with the answers to these types of questions? Use them selectively to formulate an insight or assertion about the text.\u00a0 You then develop and support that assertion with both evidence from the text itself as well as your reaction to and experience of that text.\r\n\r\nFor example, in reaction to a New York Times article by Ellen Langer, \"How Our Beliefs Can Shape Our Waistlines<\/a>,\" you might formulate the following insight: What you think about reality often shapes your reality. You could summarize Langer's research findings and then offer your own reaction to those findings.\u00a0 For example, was her experiment rigorous?\u00a0 Would you have liked more information about additional experiments in the area of brain science and positive thinking to support Langer's? Have you experienced similar results yourself or observed them in others? What were the occasions of these experiences, and were the results similar to or different than Langer's results? As you can see, when you read in order to react, you bring your personal experience to the text.\r\n\r\nHere's another way of explaining how to work with reaction questions and answers, quoted from Bucks County Community College's handout on The Summary and Reaction. [1] <\/sup>\r\n\r\n\"Making Sense of It:\r\n
      \r\n \t
    1. Identify the question that provoked the strongest response from you. What from the reading made you feel this way? What from the reading might support your opinion?<\/li>\r\n \t
    2. Are there any other responses that seem somehow related to the first? Can you draw connections between your answers? Can you support these [insights] with information from the text? From your life? From another source?<\/li>\r\n \t
    3. Can you think of examples you have read about, heard about, seen, lived, experienced to support your [insight]?<\/li>\r\n \t
    4. How did you arrive at this conclusion [at your main insight or assertion]?\"<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

      Writing to React<\/h2>\r\n\"\"Writing to react involves more than just stating a surface opinion about a text; it's more than \"I liked\/did not like it.\" When your purpose is to react to a text, you need to show that you've thought carefully about concepts and information in a text, and related concepts and information to your experience.\u00a0 You then develop a new idea or insight based on your thoughts and personal experience. You may react to the text's main idea, or a supporting idea\u2013the whole text or part of the text.\u00a0 And that part may be a portion of the text's content, as well as structure, language, or tone.\u00a0 What you react to is what resonates the most with your own personal experience.\r\n\r\nWriting to react is often called \"Summary-Response\" writing because it usually involves those two parts:\r\n
        \r\n \t
      1. summarizing the text's main ideas, to set the context for your reader by explaining what you're reacting to<\/li>\r\n \t
      2. reacting to that text, which includes both your reaction to the quality of the text itself as well as personal experience that can support and further explain your reaction<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nReactions can take many forms:\r\n