Leslie Jones

While reading the Salvatori and Donahue text I found myself reflecting on my own experiences as a student and an instructor.  The authors explain that our common understanding of difficulty and its relation to the reading and writing process is often misunderstood, and they further explain that “readers who engage, rather than avoid, a text’s difficulties can deepen their understanding of what they read and how they read” (3). I agree with their assessment, but must admit that as a young student I was not always encouraged to embrace difficulty while reading and writing.  I often felt pressure to understand the texts discussed in class quickly, and to get good results. I further felt that questions were not necessarily evidence of critical thinking, but rather evidence of a lack of knowledge. Further, as a student in elementary, middle, and high school I found that more attention was given to the final quality of my schoolwork rather than the process I went through to achieve understanding.

Many students fall into this category because of the way classroom learning is structured and evaluated. For example, if your school funding is contingent upon favorable student test scores, then as an instructor you may have no choice but to try and achieve student understanding in a limited amount of time. In this case students who master school work and reading easily may receive all the praise and attention, while less time is focused on the actual process that learners must go through in order to become more critical readers and thinkers. It was as a college student that I began to understand that embracing difficultly was not only necessary to the learning process, but also necessary to my development as a writer.

I agree with the authors, and feel that embracing difficulty is necessary to the learning process, but as an instructor I have found it challenging to encourage my students to engage in critical thinking, and move from summary to analysis. I found it valuable that in addition to discussing why introducing difficulty in the classroom should be viewed differently the authors also provide examples of classroom activities that encourage students to be more reflective while reading and writing. In my classes I have students keep a journal in which they record their reflections to the readings that we do in class, but I have never assigned a difficulty paper.

In addition to the triple-entry notebook I think that the difficulty assignment would be a good way to encourage students to embrace their questions about the texts they read. It can also teach them to view their uncertainty about a text as a normal part of the learning process, and not as a weakness. Students should be encouraged to write about the questions and uncertainties they encounter while reading, and they should have no fear in voicing those concerns in the classroom. Both of the assignments that were outlined in reading could help instructors foster an environment in the classroom where critical discussion of readings are embraced because both assignments encourage reflection, and don’t diminish the importance of the writing process.