1. Joseph Harris' Rewriting: How To Do Things With Texts
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Joseph Harris' Rewriting: How To Do Things With Texts
(Utah State University Press, 2006.) 1 1

2. Harris’ key terms Coming to terms with a text Idea chunks Forwarding 2
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Harris’ key terms
Coming to terms with a text
Idea chunks
Forwarding 2 2

3. Coming to terms Acknowledging the text
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Coming to terms
Acknowledging the text
Considering key words or passages
Assessing the uses or limits of a text 3 3

4. Acknowledging the text
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Acknowledging the text
Define the writers’ project in your own terms
Not just restate the main idea, but capture the complexity of the argument
The writer’s project is more than a main idea, it is what is said plus what he is trying to accomplish
What is the writer trying to do in specific places in the text?
What are the writer’s aims, methods, materials (why, how, what)? 4 4

5. Key word and/or passages
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Key word and/or passages
Quote sections that you want to do something to, to do further work on, or bring pressure to
Quote to show what your perspective makes visible in the text
Quote to show what aspects of the text matter to you as a person involved in the Conversation– don’t quote just to show what is there 5 5

6. Assess the uses and limits of the writer’s approach
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Assess the uses and limits of the writer’s approach
Nothing is all wrong, or all right
Try to find places where you see the limits of the writer’s perspective, argument
Try to find places where you see some real tension between what the writer is saying and what you believe or are thinking
Consider how other texts may respond to the writer’s approach 6 6

7. 5/25/2019
Forwarding
Harris thinks of forwarding as analogous to forwarding
You are sending forward something of interest to another reader
Less about responding directly to the writer
More about forwarding our thoughts about a text to someone else, someone interested in the conversation 7 7

8. ----- Meeting Notes (10/1/13 13:16) -----
Did the idea of forwarding change the way you reread the text? What kind of reading filters did you invoke as you worked through the text to choose a passage to forward?
Why did you pick that passage to forward?
What did you think was important for another reader to get about the passage you forward.
who did you think of as the recipient of your forwarding?
Why them? What did you want your forwarding to do to the recipient (audience). 8
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“A writer forwards the views of another writer when he or she takes the terms and concepts from the one text and applies them to reading of other texts or situations” (6).
Begin to shift the reader’s attention away from what someone else has said and toward your project.
Shape the materials to meet your own purposes
Illustrate something
Authorize your perspective-- turn to another text for key word or concept
Borrow others ideas as a way to reflect on your own,
Extending others ideas– “they didn’t take this far enough,” and lead to your conclusion
Could show how writer didn’t think through it enough, or hadn’t considered your perspective. 8 8

9. Idea chunks We think in chunks of insight, interpretation, analysis
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Idea chunks
We think in chunks of insight, interpretation, analysis
These chunks coalesce in subsequent reflection and analysis
We write to figure out what we think
We write our way to comprehension
We move from the literal, to the interpretive, and then the evaluative 9 9