Repairing Strategies

Repairing Strategies

• Taking steps to correct faulty comprehension
• Student is aware of the problem and takes active steps to correct it

To obtain overlooked information/clarify meaning:

• Pausing (stopping to think; could lead to another strategy)
• Looking back
• Rereading
• Using text aids (using nontext aids like maps and charts) 
• Using references (dictionary, glossary, etc)

If the text is too complicated or complex:

• Slowing reading rate
• Reading an easier version
• Reading aloud

To make sense of the book's language:

• Jumping over words or phrases
• Paraphrasing

Weekly Response Thirteen

I've decided to use Lisa Zunshine's Theory of Mind and Experimental Representations of Fictional Consciousness as the theory text for my final paper. The discussion about theory of mind really and its relation to those with learning disabilities really intrigues me. Actually deciding on a thesis becomes the real problem. Zunshine says, "our ability to explain behavior in terms of the underlying states of mind-or our mind-reading ability-can furnish us with a series of surprising insights into our interaction with literary texts." I may incorporate this quote into my thesis, getting at the fact that Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time intrigues readers because of the difficulty Christopher displays in interpreting these states of mind. Zunshine also says, "theory of mind underlies our interaction with literary texts in such profound and complex ways that any endeavor to isolate one particular aspect of such an interaction feels like carving the text at joints that are fundamentally, paradigmatically absent." But looking at Christopher, that's exactly how his mind works. The base of mind-reading, this theory of mind, is absent for him, so the interaction is fundamentally different, bringing readers' interest in. I just have to decide a quote from the novel and form this into a coherent thought, and bam. Thesis.

Weekly Response Twelve

There is no doubt that, throughout this course, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time has been my favorite read. I’m on the track to becoming a teacher, and although it’s not for special education, I feel that any educator should be well versed on how to cooperate with different children – different thinking, speaking, learning styles, etc. – and learn to embrace their differences. Therefore, I have decided to use this for the final paper of the semester. As for the theoretical texts, I haven’t quite decided. Woloch’s The One vs. The Many can be seen as relevant in the character development of Christopher, as well as the literary text regarding estranging the familiar, as seeing things through Christopher’s eyes can very well be considered taking a different view on things many people merely glance over. Furthermore, Lisa Zunshine’s Theory of Mind and Experimental Representations of Fictional Consciousness relates directly to the learning form Christopher takes on through the book.

I think I’ll stick to discussing only one literary theory in relation to the text, as I’m not sure if I would be able to adequately bring in multiple theories and do them each justice through one six to eight page paper. Once I decide which theory I would best be able to dig through, I’m confident I can knock this paper out pretty well.

Weekly Response Eleven

“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence…changes of ownership are subject to a tradition which must be traced from the situation of the original.”

            – Literary Theory page 1235

Question: Does having Marjane Satrapi’s The Complete Persepolis as a graphic novel accomplish a sort of reproduction?

Walter Benjamin, in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, talks about the way reproductions alter a work of art by making it visible to those not experiencing its uniqueness in its original position in space and time. The story of the Iranian Revolution and Marji’s life as a whole are both told through The Complete Persepolis in the form of a graphic novel. It can be argued that this form of storytelling changes these two events into works of art. However, readers aren’t experiencing them firsthand; they’re experiencing the reproductions Satrapi has put out for the public to see.

This method may just be the best way for her to explain these occurrences, though. It brings events that happened years earlier to the comic book form and therefore maybe more relative to those in today’s time. The pictures are Satrapi’s way of reproducing the events she recalls from her childhood. Readers aren’t getting the unique experience Satrapi had, but are in fact given the opportunity to make it their own. The ownership is being changed by this reproduction and therefore becoming relatable to readers by not only words, but pictures.

Weekly Response Ten

“According to McCloud, there are two important effects of cartooning: the first enables a focus on specific details; the second is ‘the universality of cartoon imagery. The more cartoony a face is, for instance, the more people it could be said to describe’ (31). Cartooning, her argues, is a way of seeing, not just a way of drawing, so the simplification of characters and images toward a purpose can be an effective tool: ‘[W]hen you look at a photo or realistic drawing of a face – you see it as the face of another but when you enter the world of the cartoon – you see yourself’ (36).”

            – Estranging the Familiar: "East" and "West" in Satrapi’s Persepolis1 Page 228

Marjane Satrapi strongly utilizes the graphic novel style. Although the cartoon faces are simple, it is still possible to see the way each event affects Marji as she goes through them – the worry and trying times. Furthermore though, and I had never thought of this until reading Naghibi, the simplistic illustrations do allow readers to place themselves in the position of characters and consider how they would be acting. Although Western readers may have never had to deal with the processes that Marji goes through, the practice of becoming the character develops more in a graphic novel than it may in a normal novel. Readers who never had to really deal with cultural differences, like the Western vs Iranian in Persepolis, are able to relate to the cultural differences with other differences – not fitting in, not feeling like you belong, etc.

Weekly Response Nine

“This situation would present no problem if no generational shift from deep to hyper attention were taking place. But with the shift, serious incompatibilities arise between the expectations of educators, who are trained in deep attention and saturated with assumptions about its inherent superiority, and the preferred cognitive mode of young people, who squirm in the procrustean beds outfitted for them by their elders. We would expect a crisis, which would necessitate a reevaluation of the relative merits of hyper versus deep attention, serious reflection about how a constructive synthesis of the two might be achieved, and a thoroughgoing revision of educational methods.”

            – Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes – N. Katherine Hayles Page 188

Question: Does transforming something from a work of literature to a movie or video form, going from deep to hyper attention, ultimately enhance the learning that a student may do when studying that specific work?

When doing the digital media treasure hunt, I found an online series called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (http://www.lizziebennet.com). It’s an online adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, narrated by Lizzie. It takes the characters and plotline of Pride and Prejudice and brings it to a more modern-day setting.

Lizzie does video blogs every couple of days, and in between those videos the audience gets to see social network updates from the different characters in order to further the story. Like twitter conversations between characters, or even something as simple as Bingley and Jane beginning to follow each other on twitter.

I think people who have read Pride and Prejudice would appreciate video blogs like this much more than those who haven’t. Being able to see and understand the transformation from Austen’s work to Lizzie’s videos allows readers to see more of the humor in the way everything in the video blogs is portrayed. It’s much like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith; an audience unaccustomed to Austen’s original work would be able to understand the plot of the story, but someone with knowledge of the work being parodied would better see the wit being revealed.

Weekly Response Eight

“But that appreciation, no matter how intense, was always combined with an intellectual distance connected to the manner in which I had acquired this new competence, that is, in school classrooms and under the sway of authoritative experts. As a consequence, my new tastes somehow failed to duplicate precisely the passion of my response to those other, suspect, supposedly transparent, popular books. Those books prompted physical sensations, a forgetting of the self and complete absorption in another world. The books that came to me as high culture never seemed to prompt the particular shudder, the frisson I associated with the books of my childhood, because they carried with them not mere promise alone but also a threat, the threat that somehow I might fail to understand, might fail to recognize their reputed meaning and inherent worth. I developed, as a consequence, an aloof, somewhat puzzled relationship to ‘Literature’ and to the ways of reading required and rewarded in my graduate seminar.”

            - Radway, A Feeling for Books, “Introduction” Page 3-4

"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved."

"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

"I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any."

            - Pride and Prejudice Page 76

Question: Did Jane Austen purposefully create Lizzy as an avid reader, although more middle-class, in comparison to Miss Caroline Bingley, who comes from a higher ranking family, yet has no interest in any kind of reading?

I can feel a strong relation to Radway’s statement about canonized, “real” literature in opposition to the “popular” books of our time. What is considered “classical literature” has interested me; I have been intrigued by the stories being told, the way they’re being told, and what exactly marks them as worthy of the praise that they have been given, but at the same time, it doesn’t hit me as hard as some of the popular books of today.

I think it’s important the Miss Bingley has no real affiliation with literature at all, especially because of the importance Darcy places upon reading. This further shows that Lizzy’s intellect ranks higher than that of Miss Bingley. Miss Bingley’s personality proves to be one of a more shallow substance than that of Lizzy’s, and I’m forced to wonder how strongly Austen believes that the interest in literature connects to this. It could almost be inferred that Miss Bingley would be more interested in the “supposedly transparent” popular books, although I’m not sure how books like that appeared in this time period. Regardless, the way the two women’s intellect is portrayed, it seems like Miss Bingley would be more inclined to take no interest in the more “complex” literature.