Blog #2 “How to Read Like a Writer”
In the essay, “How to Read Like a Writer” it explains what it means to read like a writer. When you read like a writer you are supposed to work to identify some of the choices the author made, so that you can better understand how such choices might arise in your own writing (72, Bunn). Some of us ask ourselves why is this really important or why can’t I just read “normally”? the answer is because RLW helps you to figure out the text you are reading while helping you to build on your own writing (74). Using the famous poem “Phenomenal Woman” by Maya Angelou, I am going to go over the concepts of what it means to read like a writer.
In order to RLW you must start asking yourself questions about the text before you begin reading. To start off you might ask yourself the author’s purpose for writing this piece, you could start off by doing some historical research about Angelou. After conducting your research, you would learn that Angelou was a civil rights activist and also spoke on the behalf of women’s image through her writing. So with this information you can interpret that her purpose for this poem was to increase the self-esteem of all women and to inform men that all women are “phenomenal” and they are all very different, but that does not make them less beautiful or phenomenal. The text is a published one instead of student-produced, which makes a difference as to the way it is written. The intended audience would women in the sixties and seventies to demonstrate to them that it is ok to be proud of who you are and to be a woman.
RLW also means answering questions as you read, such as: the author’s purpose for this piece of writing and who is the intended audience, the type of language the author uses and the effect it has on the piece, what type of evidence does the author use to back up his/hers claims, are there pieces of the text that you are confused about, and how does the author transition between ideas (79-81, Bunn). As we discussed prior the intended audience is women during the sixties and seventies. The diction used throughout the poem is very simple and dull, but it reflects the well-defined text. For example, she uses words like “fire” and “eyes” which are very simple words, but they convey that Angelou is proud of who she is and to be a woman. Angelou uses own personal experiences as her evidence to assert her ideas. There is only one piece of the text that I got slightly confused about, it was: “Men themselves have wondered, what they see in me. They try so much, but they can’t touch my inner mystery” (4, Angelou). These lines may be very confusing because of the diction she chooses, but the words choose are what make the stanza so interesting. Once the reader reads the rest of the stanza they are able to interpret that she is saying that she has yet to find a man that accepts her fully with all her faults. The author transitions between her ideas by putting each main idea into a stanza. While reading you should also take notes and highlight throughout, so you can later reflect on what you read and incorporate into your writing. The goal to RLW is to ask yourself all of those questions to clearly evaluate the piece you are reading and transfer it your own writing and to develop questions as you read based on the text (82-85, Bunn).
Works Citied:
Bunn, Mike.”How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Vol. 1. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor P, 2010. 71-86. Writing Spaces. Web. 2 Feb. 2016.
Angelou, Maya. “Phenomenal Woman.” Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women. New York: Random House, 1994. N. pag. Print.
