First: Read the following excerpt from “Dinosaur Dreams: Reading the Bones of America’s Psychic Mascot” by Jack Hitt
Sixty-five million years ago, conservatively speaking, the last dinosaurs lay down and died-on the ground, beside rivers, in tar pits. Then, about a hundred years ago, they got back up and have been pretty busy ever since. Hardly a week goes by that they don’t make the news, because of a new theory about either how they lived or how they died. There might be word of a new prime-time TV deal, another revelry (Dinofest V is planned for next year), a new exhibit, the goings-on, of paleontological hunk Paul Sereno, a Spielberg script, a hot toy, a legal dispute about some bones, an egg.
In America, where dinosaurs do most of their work (and always have), they periodically disappear from view and then resurface, like John Travolta or Democrats, capturing and losing our cycling interest. Dinosaurs are distinctly American, not only because out scholars have so often been at the forefront of fossil discoveries and paleontological theory but because the popular dinosaur is a wholly owned projection of the nationalist psyche of the United States. Their periodic rebirth in pop culture neatly signals deep tectonic shifts in our sense of ourself as a country. Even glancing appearances can be telling. After Newt Gingrich rampaged through the House of Representatives and seized power in 1994, he placed a skull of a T. rex in his office. When [President Bill Clinton] got a new dog, he called him, strangely, “Barney”- a name most closely associated with a phony dinosaur who masks his cheerful dimness with sticky compassion.
Second: Summarize this excerpt in your own words.
Third: Which of the following perspectives did you use to complete this exercise?
Believing: What the author says is probably true. Which ideas can I relate to? What information should I use? What seems especially sound about the argument?
Doubting: What are the texts weaknesses? What doesn’t work with your own experience? What gaps are their in the argument? What isn’t believeable?
Updating: What does this add to what I already know about the topic?
Hunting and Gathering: What can I collect from the text that I might be able to use?
Interpreting: What might the meaning of this be?
Pleasure Seeking: I just want to enjoy the text and be entertained by it
Connecting: How does this information relate to my own experiences? What is its relationship to other things I’ve read? Does it verify, extend, or contradict what other authors have said?
Reflecting: How was this written? What makes it particularly effective or ineffective?
Resisting: This doesn’t interest me. Why do I have to read it?
Also, make a list of all the reading behaviors you used to complete the previous two steps. Reading behaviors include underlining, highlighting, note-taking, margin writing, listing, rereading, skimming, exploratory writing, conversations with others about the text, taking a break, or copying passages. When done, answer the following questions: Was there a pattern to the behaviors you used? Were the perspectives you adopted typical for you? Would your behaviors or perspectives changed if you had to write a one page argument against the author’s claims instead of just summarizing?
Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is again getting the students to look at their reading habits. Push the students to actively look at how they interact with a text.
From: Ballenger, Bruce. The Creative Writer. New York: Pearson Education, 2005