In addition to fiction we all read a great deal of exposition.
Expository writing presents challenges of its own. Usually
the biggest hurdle is unfamiliar words and concepts. We
often are reading exposition "to learn." Consequently
we generally don't have a lot of pragmatic or background
information to bring to the text. That affects our dependence
on the other cueing systems.
The interesting thing is, however, that reading can be
its own teacher—that is authors build texts to clarify
what they anticipate to be unfamiliar words and concepts.
In this set of activities we'll explore some strategies
for handling exposition.
Do each of the activities. Then freewrite about your
thoughts, questions, connections, insights into reading
and learning that the activities taken together raised
for you. Post your freewrite on the listserv.
