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Date:         Wed, 7 Oct 1992 11:16:00 -0400
From:         Nick.Carbone@WRITING.UMASS.EDU
Subject:      Reply to Re: Basic writing, again and again

Subj: Reply to Reading outloud

------------ Letter Body Part 1 - Text  ------------

Mike,
    I have my students read their text out loud.  Partly because it helps me
when I do it.  I do it because it was one of the ways we did group work in
Eng. 712, "Writing and the Teaching of Writing"; too Peter Elbow presents it
and argues for it in our TA workshops.  Here's what Elbow and Pat Belanoff say
about reading outloud in _Sharing and Responding_(Random House, 1989):
     You can read your piece out loud or give your readers copies for
     them to read silently.  The process of reading out loud brings learn-
     ing: you can feel strengths and weaknesses physically in your ear and
     mouth.  You can tell about responses by watching your listeners.   And
     reading out loud is more alive. (4)

     GUIDELINES FOR SHARING OUT LOUD  (from section one, "No Responding: Sharing
         To the writer:
              * Take a moment to look at your listeners, relax, and take a
                deep breath.  Say a few introductory words if necessary.

              * Read slowly, clearly.  Own your writing; read it with
                authority even if you are not satisfied with it.

              * Concentrate on the meaning of what you're reading: don't
                worry about whether listeners like it.

              * Take a pause between paragraphs.

              * Let people interrupt to ask you to repeat or go slower,
                but don't let them give you any feedback.

              * Read your piece a second time.  Pause after the first reading
                but don't let people respond.

              * When you are done, ask the group to go on to the next reader.

To the listeners:
                 * Your job is to receive without comment.

                 * If the writer is racing or mumbling so can't understand,
                   interrupt him--appreciatively but firmly--and say, "Wait
                   a minute, go back, I couldn't hear.  Please read more slowly
                   and clearly."

                 * Get the writer to read twice.  Don't refrain from being
                   assertive.

                 * Give no feedback of any kind.

                 * Thank the writer and suggest that the next person read.
If everyone is sharing a piece on the same topic, you might agree to discuss
the topic after everyone has read.  But don't let the discussion turn into
disguised feedback on each other's writing. (10-11)

          Elbow and Belanoff don't use feedback at this stage because they
want to establish a community in the class, "trying to emphasize writing as
communicating rather than as performing for judgement." (9)
        When writers do read out loud for feedback as well as for sharing, the
writer tells the reader what kind of feedback they would like.
    Now evidence...
            Students say they don't like to do it, but eventually (for mine,
this is all anecdotal) they do get used to it, some actually come to like it.
Almost all say the benefit from it.  Among the benefits they mention after
I ask them what the benefits are:
       Reading out loud helps me find places I want to make changes--so
       when they read from the screen they mark the text with an asterick
       where they see they want to change something and use the search command
       to find the marks.

          Reading out loud helps me to imagine better what I sound like
          to readers.  The sense is that the oral voice and the written
          voice both resonate in the writer's ear.  This student added
          that at some points where she wanted the paper to sound a cer-
          tain way, sarcastic, she realized that from reading out loud
          in only did because she read it that way, that as it was
          written, it didn't seem to her like it sounded that way on its
          own, she put a spin on the phrase in question.

          Some reported not reading sections of the paper because they
          just couldn't bring themselves to do it, mostly because they
          realized how much they didn't like it for one reason or another.
          So they skipped over that part and later removed it from
          the essay, a more global type of revision than the changes marked
          by astericks.

One last story.  This is department lore here.  Marcia Curtis had a student
who was having trouble with syntax and grammar and all short sentence usage.
She asked him to read his paper out loud to her in conference (something a
fair number of teachers here seem to do-although I don't).  The student
mumbled, read in a monotone...wasn't really hearing the piece.  So Marcia
took him downstairs to the auditorium, she sat in the back row, put the
student on the stage, and told him to read it OUT LOUD.  This forced the
student to enunciate and to inject some voice into the reading.  He
finally heard the paper for the first time.

Sorry this is so long, Mike and all, hope it helps.

Nick.Carbone@writing.umass.edu
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU