from Judith McDaniel
I am always amazed when I give someone a direction that seems perfectly clear to me and I get an email back asking the same question or asking a follow up question that tells me my answer wasn’t read or that only the first of three steps was followed. It happened again this morning. I gave the directions, he couldn’t make it work. I gave them again, he is out of town…
I teach. I pride myself on being clear when I give directions or ask questions. It is something I’ve had to learn and practice over and over. It is essential to what I do. But I am only half of the equation. The person receiving the direction is the other half.
I know what it’s like. We all get so much email, have access to so much information. Reading everything that comes just in email would ensure I never did anything else in a day. I teach my students how to skim the index of a book when they don’t have time to read the entire text to find information they can use. The same skill lets us do an online search. Only 35,000 responses in 1.2 seconds to my search. I’m surely not going to read even the first 100. Refine the search, limit, narrow. Now I’m down to only 8,000 websites to check.
Close reading
So I understand skimming. But what about close reading? When I’ve asked a question, isn’t there some Emily Post manual that tells me I should slow down and read the answer? It’s more than etiquette. For a student, reading the directions is survival—and their grades depend on it. So I may have to add a “when not to skim” chapter to my “how to skim” lecture
Tags: close reading, giving directions, skimming
This is so true! When someone takes the time to respond to a question, especially giving detailed instructions, the least the person who asked can do is to read it! I remember a great exercise in 6th grade — we were given a full page of instructions. The first step was to read ALL the way thru before beginning. Then there were a bunch of busy action steps (find this, staple that, cut this other thing)…. everyone in my class was busy running around doing things while I followed the instructions and read the whole sheet. The last instruction…. ignore all but the first item. So I was finished with the assignment way before everybody else, just because I bothered to follow them! Thanks Judith, for teaching the skill of skimming, being able to discern when to skim and when not to, and the importance of reading (or skimming) all the way thru when you’re being given directions!
This is a great example, Beth. Thanks for that!