Blog Post (2/27)


                I am tutoring a student enrolled in an Interpretation of Literature class who has reading-to-write issues. The instructor assigns some challenging texts from authors like Faulkner and David Foster Wallace, and I can tell that the student struggles with reading comprehension. The student usually brings a short response to the weekly reading to our tutoring session and we work on it together. As it stands, her reading skills are quite literal and don’t scratch below the surface of a text – and she doesn’t see herself in conversation with the author. I try to ask probing questions, but I feel like they don’t get us anywhere. I ask my student what Faulkner might be trying to convey by including the coffin in As I Lay Dying, for example, and she will tell me it is to hold Addie Bundren’s body. Which is true, but also not at all what the instructor is looking for. In my attempts to get the student to come up with an interpretation of the text, I end up going on my own diatribe about the weird symbolism/philosophy in Faulkner and confusing her even more. What are some good strategies for teaching close reading? Maybe I could assign my student a “What It Does” statement, per Bean? It is hard to help this student with her writing when the reading itself is not producing the evidence-based responses and analysis that the instructor wants.

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