Week 7 - Students and Reading Difficulties

In reading the chapter for this week's reading, I was stunned by just how relevant it has been to my students' reading experience. The tip that Bean gives to admit when you, as an instructor, don't understand the text either, has been immensely helpful in my own experience of teaching texts. The aspect of cultural codes / history has also been very relevant to my class - since I teach a lot of foreign media, I assume that they do not have the background necessary, so I spend a class lecturing them on the background of a work. It usually works out well in their favor, but with more difficult texts, it shows that we can all learn together. This actually happened yesterday when I was teaching Mulvey's Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema; most of the students had attempted to read the reading, but admitted that they had no idea what Mulvey was saying. So, at the least, the effort was there, which I appreciate.

Which of Bean's tips has worked best for you all in terms of helping with reading comprehension and engagement, in your own practice / pedagogical experiences?

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