The Responsive, Responsible, and Compassionate Reader

The Responsive, Responsible, and Compassionate Reader

1. Readers need to be responsive!

   • Reading is more than just robotic decoding, so readers should be aware of reactions when faced with text.
     • • Readers should be aware of how the text affects their own thoughts, feelings, ideas, and emotions
       • • When information matters to the reader, it is easier to remember, and it helps the reader make sense of themselves and of the text.
         • • Readers should be alert to the responses of others, because they might offer different perspectives and insights to the same piece of text.

2. Readers need to be responsible!

   • Readers should pay attention to both the words on the page, as well as their own responses.
     • • Readers should analyze their own thoughts and feelings about the text.
       • • They should examine the author’s evidence and reasoning within the text and question when necessary.
         • • Readers should come to a reasonable conclusion about the text by combining the text with their own experiences.

3. Readers need to determine the accuracy of text!

   • Some texts can be inaccurate, opinionated, and even invented, so readers need to determine the authenticity of the information being presented to them.
     • • Readers should examine how the text looks, because how it looks can indicate whether the text is accurate or not.
       • • Readers should think about what the text says, because if it doesn’t sound credible, then it probably isn’t.
         • • Readers should analyze how the text makes them feel, because if it brings excessive surges of a specific feeling, then it may not be credible.

4. Readers should be compassionate!

   • Readers should understand and respect multiple perspectives that text can provide.
     • • Readers should be open to opinions different than their own, because they can learn new information that can shape or change their perspective.
       • • Readers can better understand people and the world around them if they understand multiple viewpoints of a certain topic.
         • • Compassionate reading can turn into compassionate actions that can make the world a better place for all.

5. Reading can have aesthetic and efferent aspects!

   • The aesthetic aspect of reading requires readers to be aware of themselves while reading, whereas efferent reading is mainly the extraction of information.
     • • Some readers feel that they have to merely extract information, when they should also be thinking about themselves and how the text impacts them.
       • • Sometimes reading should be only for extraction, like reading emergency procedures, but students sometimes feel like reading is JUST for information recall.
         • • Reading is an experience, not just fact regurgitation all the time, and readers should read aesthetically AND efferently, not one or the other.

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