12.4: After Reading (Writing about and interacting with texts)

In order to complete the reading cycle, you need to bring the text off of the page and apply your own ideas and thinking to it. Many students have their own way of completing the reading cycle: they write a journal about the reading and how it connects to their life, they write out a short summary of what they read, or they discuss the text with another person. Since this is a writing class, your teacher will often have a writing assignment for you to complete to finish the reading process. This assignment might occur more less formally through a discussion board or journal, or it might occur more formally, through an essay that you will plan, write, and revise.

Regardless of your teacher’s writing assignment over a text, though, the first steps are always to pre-read and then actively read the text before completing an assignment over the reading, regardless of the course.

Discussion Boards are probably the most common assignment for online English students to complete in EG 101 to complete the reading process. In an English class, we do a lot of talking, but an online English class does not afford us the physical space to have conversations about the reading and writing in the course. Instead, our discussion about course reading takes place through a written discussion, meaning that online English students can expect to do a lot of writing over the course reading.

Tips for writing discussion board posts

• Begin by telling what your main point is in the post rather than starting with a detail.
• If you are addressing a source, introduce the source using the author and title and telling the main point of the text (see pages 175-176 for more help).
• Use evidence from the text to support your point. Consider using quotes to do so but be sure to include a page or paragraph number with quotes.
• Move past summary to connect the text to your experiences and opinions.
• Consider ending your post with a question if your teacher requires peer responses. This will aid other students in writing substantive responses to you.

Common pitfalls in discussion board writing

• The student does not plan the discussion post
• The student does not give evidence from the text
• The student talks about themselves rather than the text
• The student only summarizes the text and does not offer any analysis or opinion

See the example discussion board post on page 41 for more help with what a post might look like.

Journals are another type of informal writing that may be required of you after reading a text. Generally, your teacher's assigned journals will have specific prompts, but following the bulleted list above for discussion board posts will also help you with a quality journal (excepting the final suggestion of asking a question). Just like in a paper, a journal should relay specific evidence from a text to prove your point, especially if they are to be helpful in future papers. Journals should also move past summary to express your own opinions or ideas on the text.

If your teacher does not assign journals, and you would like to start a reading journal to help in your EG 101 course, you can use the following questions to write a journal over any reading in your EG 101 course to help yourself process the content:

• Begin with a 2-3 sentence summary of the text. Tell the author, title, and main point. Give enough information to fill a reader in on the main point of the text.
• Zero in on a specific example or point from the text. Relay that point in a sentence or two.
• Respond to the point or example: do you have similar experiences? Can you draw some meaning out of this detail? Why did it stick out to you? Do you have a strong opinion about it?
• Move on to another detail and repeat the first two bullet points again.