Language focus
The nature of the reading process

Proposed M.I. focus
Any and all

Level
Elementary to Advanced
( In the case of the reading given here, intermediate)

Time
20-30 minutes

Preparation
Copy the reading passage so each student can have one.
Prepare to read the passage aloud to the class

In class

1. Ask the students to read the passage. Ask them to write two paragraphs about what went through their heads as they read.
2. Read the passage to them.
3. Now give them time and space to tell you in detail about their process during their first silent read and then as they listened.

              Were they in a spatial mode?
                           a musical mode?
              Were they right in the action themselves?
              Were they well outside, thinking about
              the style of the writing?
              Were they in a daydream unconnected with the text?
                              etc……

   Listen to their process stories with uncritical wonder. Your receptivity will make their process stories flow.

   When you hear the untrammelled reality of the reading and listening processes, it is breath-taking.

   Reading Passage

   "What time is it/" he asks
   " Three o'clock."
   " Morning or afternoon?"
   " Afternoon".
   

   He is silent. There is nothing else he wants to know. Only that another block of time has passed.
   " How are you?" I say.
   " Who is it?" he asks.
   " It's the doctor. How do you feel?"
   

   He does not answer right away.
   " Feel?" he says.
   " I hope you feel better" I say.
   
   I press the button at the side of the bed.
   " Down you go," I say.
   " Yes, down, " he says.
   

   He falls back upon the bed awkwardly. His stumps, unweighted by legs and feet , rise in the air, presenting themselves. I unwrap the bandages from the stumps and begin to cut away the black scabs and dead, glazed fat with scissors and forceps. A shard of white bone comes loose. I pick it way.
   I wash the wounds with disinfectant and re-dress the stumps.
   All this while he does not speak.
   What is he thinking behind those eyes that do not blink?
   

   " Anything more I can do for you?" I ask.
   For a long moment he is silent.
   
   " Yes," he says at last and without the least irony.
   " you can bring me a pair of shoes."
   

   ( From Confessions of a Knife, by Richard Selzer, Triad / Granada, 1982 . Page 134 )