Ethical Reading
& Performative Literacy
& Performative Literacy
Both overconfident and overly-fearful readers run from these confusing, paradoxical moments in a text.
(In T.O., we run toward them, suspending our need for closure and certainty.)
What are trouble spots?
Before listing ideas (or interpretations) about a text, start a column of these things that no reader could dispute (e.g., the poem uses the word "snake" 3 times).
What are facts?
To prove the overall thesis, each body paragraph should start with a mini-argument, sometimes called a “topic sentence,” but a clearer term is this.
What is a claim?
Make your sentences and paragraphs flow more smoothly for the reader using these pointing & connecting words or phrases.
What are transitions?
Nobody’s "perfect" or "hopeless." Anyone learning any skill (including writing) should recognize their strengths and work on their weaknesses using this mindset.
What is a growth mindset?
To learn other perspectives, we should not only read diverse literature but also practice this when we do.
What is close reading?
To brainstorm, you can free-associate brief terms, names, and phrases from the text, using the clustering strategy, also called this.
What is mind mapping?
At various points in your essay, if you make a controversial point that a reader might disagree with, you can consider the other side by including one or more of these.
What is a counterargument?
Helping the reader follow your thought process (by adding things like "This paper will argue..." or "I'm not saying ___, but ___...") is called this.
(Just don't overdo it.)
What is metacommentary?
Instead of assuming that the poet is writing about themselves, we should refer to a poem's narrator using this literary term.
What is the speaker of the poem?
Many of us were taught to quickly read texts for the big picture. Instead, Jane Gallop suggests we slow down, focus on minor details, and avoid these types of notions?
What are preconceived notions?
Anne Lamott suggests getting your ideas down in a "sh--ty first draft." Trimble suggests something similar during prewriting, but he calls it this.
What is a zero draft?
According to They Say, I Say, when an inexperienced writer drops a quote into a paper without any setup beforehand or analysis afterwards, they become this kind of reckless quoter.
(...and maybe a bad driver, too.)
What is a hit-and-run quoter?
The Paramedic Method rescues key info from piled-up prepositional phrases, resuscitates active voice from passive voice, and revives strong verbs you accidentally turned into static nouns through this grammatical process.
What is nominalization?
According to Trimble, this type of writer is egocentric and doesn't consider the reader.
What is a novice?
Sheridan Blau claims we can get more out of difficult texts, if we learn to sustain this one thing and tolerate this other thing.
(Hint: first one is hard to sustain in tech-addicted times, and 2nd thing is hard for prideful people to tolerate.)
What are attention and failure?
We shouldn't think of the writing process as a sprint on a straight line. For example, you can repeat and return to your prewriting strategies at any point before/during/after a draft. As a whole, the writing process is not only "iterative" but also this kind of process.
What is a recursive process?
A function outline can help you check the flow of a rough draft. The most important thing it does is help you align the body paragraphs to these implied steps in the thesis statement to prove your argument.
What are the "promises" of the thesis?
In MLA style, any time you quote or paraphrase ChatGPT or other A.I.-generated material in a paper, your parenthetical in-text citation must include a short version of this. (The full citation goes in the Works Cited section.)
What is the prompt you used?
When observing the acting in a film, you should analyze what the actors say and how they say it. But you should also pay attention to these cues.
What are nonverbal cues?
Sheridan Blau defines this performative literacy trait as acknowledging other views on a text and being willing to be wrong & change your mind.
What is “intellectual generosity and fallibility”?
To discover the significance of your analysis and argument, keep asking these two basic questions as you interpret a text's details and effects.
What are "Why?" and "So what?"?
A three-story thesis statement interprets the text in a bold way, explains why this argument matters, and provides a roadmap for the paper. Thus, it offers the reader this valuable thing.
What is a gift?
There are several effective ways to conclude a paper. Calling back to your opening hook is the "bookend" method. Ending instead by analyzing a brief, new, striking piece of evidence that reflects the gist of your thesis is this type of conclusion.
What is the prism conclusion?
Apart from the camerawork, everything that appears on screen in a film scene — sets, costumes, lighting, placement of actors & other staging elements — is called this French term.
What is mise-en-scène?