What factors contribute to your frustrations with reading a difficult text? The expense of time and the fact that you might come away with nothing contributes to a fear of deep waters.

The following discussion of The Reading Process comes from John Bean's Engaging Ideas. Bean identifies ten areas which can cause students and teachers problems.

1. Misunderstanding the reading process

When experts read difficult texts they read slowly and reread often. They hold confusing passages in "mental suspension," having faith that later parts will help clarify. They "nutshell" passages as they proceed, getting the gist by marking in the margins. They interact with the text by asking questions as they read.

In contrast, perhaps you think that expert readers are speed readers. Evelyn Wood converts. And sometimes you assume it is the teachers job to "explain" the text. In other words students decide that they do not really have to engage the text because the teacher will do it for them. The result? Teachers buy you fish instead of teaching you how to fish.

When I initially read the first five chapters of Billy Budd, I read quickly without engaging the text or taking notes because I needed to know immediately if I could use this story in a class on Literature and Law. I know that some people dislike the opacity of Melville's writing, in this novella in particular . This speed reading approach yielded no real appreciation for Melville as an artist and I came away thinking that if I assign this story--however short--the Great Mutiny would also take place in my classroom. Regardless, it also seemed at the time that in reading Melville's text we could, as learners, openly reflect on the problems associated with reading difficult, yet canonical, texts. In other words we could talk about the ten areas of difficulty that John Bean describes using a specific text as a model or example. Last night I started over, reading more slowly and carefully with a pencil in my hand, making marginal notes and asking questions and looking up words in the dictionary. I also decided to remain open to the text by having faith. Something quite different took place. Melville had me captive. It was like I was reading a totally different story than the one I read just twenty-four hours earlier.

2. Failure to Adjust reading strategies for different purposes

The process varies. Students facing enormous amounts of reading must learn to distinguish between different purposes (for reading) and make the adjustments to their reading speed based on knowing these purposes. The reading polarity--between "getting the gist" and "close scrutiny." And this may vary within a single text. Good readers read for the gist of things, then at times for main ideas, and at other times for detail and then again at times for inference and application--developing critical thinking skills. Poor readers do not discriminate. They read at the same speed all the time. John Bean writes, "The lesson here is that we need [to know] when to read fast and when to read slowly.

In reading the Iliad, for instance, in my humanities class, I designate specific books that I want students to read closely and therefore more slowly. The assumption is that certain books contain key events that offer insight into human endeavors in the ancient and modern world, at least according to Homer. In reading Melville's Billy Budd, I suspect that we all will have to read slowly at least on more than one occassion.It is a novella that requires us to use a dictionary and reread. As an experiment I purchased Cliffs Notes on BB and read the brief chapter summaries. I then read each chapter of the novella slowly and compared my sense of the content to the CN summary. I discovered that the Cliff Notes were perhaps useful for getting the gist, but that CNs failed to even acknowledge the parts of Melville's story that I regarded as the most fascinating. The reason that I ask students to focus on the judiciary in Mary Shelley's novel, then, is by design to set up a research scenario that defines the reading process--that is, to help students see that reading strategies vary. The question we answer? When do we read to get the gist and when do we read carefully. Under the circumstances, when we understand the purpose for reading we then might know when to take notes and write in the margins and ask questions and when to skim texts . However it is important to remember that the word skim doesn't mean jumping forward and skipping pages of the story. It means that you simply read more rapidly with the intentions of understanding the narrative sequence, while honing in on key words--like in Shelley's novel-- such as "justice" and "trial" and "crime."

3. Difficulty in Perceiving the Structure of an Argument as you read

Avoid the random use of the yellow highlighter. Consider the hierarchies within stories. Some parts map out upcoming sections. Some parts give evidence of main ideas. Some delve into opposing views. Try to see the discrete parts as having describable functions.

Testimony: For instance, in chapter 11 of Billy Budd, Melville begins with a question: "What is the matter with[ John Claggart]?"The entire chapter is devoted to a discussion of hatred and its concealment. This discussion is not part of the narrative sequence of events. It is contemplation and philosophy. It reminds me of Tobias Wolff's brief commentary on hatred in second chapter of In Pharaoh's Army (Wolff's experience on the merchant ship appears to be a literary allusion to Melville's Billy Budd). Melville, in chapter 12, discusses the human phenomena of irrational hatred as it relates to the judicial process. Again this chapter also has a completely different function when compared to the events that occur as part of the narrative sequence. Chapter 11 and 12 provide a context for understanding coming events. As readers we need to acknowledge the "parts" of a story and then describe how each part functions.

In the Iliad, readers begin to see that, in Book II, "The Great Gathering of Armies," a series of "hierarchal parts" exist. We see Agamemnon "test" his troops, which is comical and will later become ironic in that when Zeus' promise to Thetis becomes reality, Agamemnon will say the same words again--" let's go home," --but this time he means it. And interestingly this time the Greek warriors will instead press their resolve to defeat the Trojans--a reversal that shows us just how out of touch Agamemnon is with the pathos of his warriors. In other words the first section of Book II is connected to the ongoing questions of heroic character, especially Agamemnon's. However the last pages of the same book describe in extended similes the armies coming out onto the plains of Troy as colorful and amazing, yet these descriptions have less impact on our understanding of heroic codes, flaws of character, or divine deception.

4. Difficulty in Assimilating the Unfamiliar

This is directly related to part three of the critical thinking rubric and involves understanding the forces of "cognitive egocentrism." John Bean writes: "No matter what an author really means, students translate those meanings into ideas that they are comfortable with." It seems that the more threatening or the more uncomfortable an idea becomes, the more we tend, as humans, to transform it into what Bean calls "our own psychological neighborhoods." The deep harbors sea monsters and rather than catch such monsters, most of us transform them into "canned tuna." This has nothing to do with being stupid or being lazy. Bean is talking about what it means to be human. It is as natural as crawling before walking. And we need to deal with it.

Bean's discussion at first appears to belong to the distinctions we have made in class between New Criticism and Reader Response Theory. However I think that acknowledging this part of the reading process is key to the development of higher thinking skills. Consider the reasons William Broyles gives for "Why Men Love War." The idea that men could love war in the first place may seem foreign, a genuine sea monster. Yet when Broyles goes on to give us the unsavory reasons why men love war, we may be as horrified as Billy Budd is when he witnesses the disciplinary whipping of one of his shipmates. What do we do? One quick way that we deal with this monster, as humans, is to discount the author's perspective by attacking the author himself, saying things like he is an idiot and doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. This is the ad hominem approach and it is, in the end, utterly full proof but it also prevents us from developing higher thinking skills. So first we must begin by reflecting on our habitual tendencies to discount (ad hominem) what we fear or do not understand.

5. Difficulty in appreciating a text's rhetorical context

Students have trouble seeing what conversation texts belong to. In particular, students might not realize that texts actually talk to one another throughout time and thus authors shape questions and problems within this ongoing conversation as part of belonging to a particular political camp. They have trouble seeing a real author writing for some important reason out of a real historical context.

In my English classes, we have looked at texts like In Pharaoh's Army and H. G. Wells' "In the Country of the Blind" as belonging to an ongoing conversation about the nature of imperialism, the culture of war, and the soldier's perspective. The reading of the poetry of Richard Lovelace, Wilfred Owen, James Thompson, and Rudyard Kipling (and the viewing of the first fifteen minutes of films like Black Hawk Down or episodes of "Bonanza") takes place as part of learning to "see" authors within a historical context and thereby identify a main problem and subsidiary, embedded, or implicit aspects of the problem, more clearly, addressing their relationships to each other throughout all time.

6. Difficulty Seeing Yourself in Conversation with the Author

Readers must play two opposing roles: an open minded believer who can succumb to the text's power and a skeptical doubter who can find weakness in the text. In playing these roles the reader does carry on a silent conversation with the text's author.

This means that we as readers ask questions as we read, which includes making marks in the margins. I always read with a pencil in my hand. I actively claim the reader's right to question the author's authority not for the sake of rebellion itself (which is egocentric), but for the higher purpose of achieving a more savvy understanding of the story.

7. Lack of "Cultural Literacy" assumed by the text's author

Students do not always have access to cultural codes within a text. In other words, students may not fully understand the background information, the literary allusions, or the "common knowledge" of the time that an author assumes the reading audience would know. Hirsch, Kett, and Trefil (1987) have made a national movement out of "cultural literary," the lack of which they claim is the prime source of students' reading difficulties in college.

This is in particular visible when reading a text like Homer's Iliad or Melville's Billy Budd. For instance, the rest of stories that surround a text like the Iliad--stories like the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the events at Aulis, the Judgment of Paris, and the whole saga of the House of Atreus--were know to the first readers that cast their eyes upon the lines of this ancient epic poem. The teaching of reading in this context puts the burden of explanation on the teacher. I find myself talking at length about the meaning of details and allusions that require cultural literacy. Ands it seems that students all vary in their sensibilities here. One student may have read the works of Henry David Thoreau and understand his attitudes toward government, while another student in the same class may never of heard of an American writer by the name of Thoreau. Teachers face the challenge of generating some platform of shared knowledge (cultural literacy) in the classroom just to have a meaningful discussion. Making assumptions about a group's level of literacy is fallacy. Consequently, developing a level of literacy by which we can (as a class) move forward intellectually into provocative readings of texts requires time.

In Billy Budd, issues of cultural literacy are central. I realize this fact and therefore know that students may lack the cultural literacy to enjoy the story. But my intention is to explicitly show students what it is exactly that causes them to struggle with Melville's story. That doesn't mean that a reader will ever come to fully appreciate Melville's writing but it means that we ar readers will come to understand what it is that we face in an academic context; and thus carte blanche consciousness replaces indiscriminate rejection and reaction. The range of difficulties with cultural literacy in Billy Budd? From the notion that "man of war" means an armed navy vessel, to understanding the phase "welkin-eyed" as referring to eyes as blue as the sky, to the slang bluejackets as English sailors, to Calvin's dogma as the philosophy of John Clavin that the fate of each person is predetermined, to Delphic deliverances as oracles from Apollo's priestess at delphi, to the Mutiny Act, a law dating to 1689 which sought to halt mutiny and desertion, to understanding that the opening discussion of the "Handsome Sailor" evokes a prototype--on and on--from the biblical reference to Ham to the allusion to Assyrian priests. . . grand sculptured Bull, Melville's intellect continues to challenges modern readers.

8. Inadequate Vocabulary

An inadequate vocabulary hampers comprehension. A dictionary helps. But we also must understand that the meaning of words depends on context. And we need to tune our ears in on humor and irony.

9. Difficulty in Tracking Complex Syntax

Students are skilled enough at reading college textbooks which often have a simple syntax. But when we read complex sentences like the ones Melville constructs in Billy Budd, students have trouble isolating the main chunks into grammatical units.

10. Difficulty in Adjusting reading Strategies to the Varieties of Academic Discourse

Students do not adjust their reading strategies for different genres. That is as anglers, they do not adjust their strategy to the kind of fish they seek.