Contributed by: Mary Wilson
While working on the Interacting With Texts essay, I found that my students were doing a great job of sharing their opinions, but kept skewing away from the arguments in the texts in favor of their own ideas. I used this exercise in class to demonstrate the difference between an "all me" and an "all text" reading, and it seemed to help them get in the middle of that text-wrestling scale.
Bring in a recent political cartoon. Share it with the students and ask them what the cartoon is about and what methods (not "drawing") the artist is using to get that message across. Get them to describe it: What images? What is exaggerated? Does the piece use text or is it all visual? Ask them to stay away from "I like it" or "I don't like it."
Pretty soon, the students may start making judgments about the characters depicted or the artist who created it. This is a good point to put the scale (all text vs. all student writer) up on the board. Remind them about the difference between the two extremes.
Ask one student to demonstrate an "all text" reading of the cartoon (pure description/summary) and another to demonstrate an "all me." (You can also do this part yourself -- that may be easier because you can exaggerate the extremes for effect, but it's also good to get the students to try it so they can see what their own tendencies are from the start.)
Now that they've seen the extremes, ask them to come back to the middle. How can they combine their opinions (which color their reading) with the limits placed by the text? Encourage them to throw out a few options, then write and share.
Once they've done this together, give them a few more cartoons and ask them to pick one or two to write on from that midpoint perspective. When they're done, share in groups of 3-4 and have partners evaluate how well each writer came to that happy medium.
