Characteristics of Experienced Readers and Writers (page 2)
Active Engagement in Constructing Meaning from and with Texts
Jeff Wilhelm (1997) notes that "Once students have learned how
to read, and move through middle school, reading is still
regarded as a passive act of receiving someone else's meaning"
—and often of proving that you "get it" by correctly answering
the questions at the end of the text. This is perhaps why the
General English students in Janet Allen's (1995) high school
class—students identified and labeled as non–college
bound—neither saw it as their responsibility nor felt they had
the tools to interact with the author and the text to construct
their own meaning. Instead, as Allen observes, they waited for
reading to happen to them. For example, Janet quotes a student
named Jennifer: "I thought if I just learned all the sounds and
the syllables and stuff, I'd be able to read. And then I would
open the book and it didn't happen". This is not unlike the
beginning writer who sits, brows furrow