How to Read Like a Writer — Comprehensive Study Notes

Overview of RLW (Reading Like a Writer)
- Mike Bunn’s experience in 1997 at the Palace Theatre in London, guarding during Les Misérables performances.
- The environment forced him to read under distraction (dim lighting, gunshots, theatre noise), which led him to notice how the author builds text word-by-word.
- Key realization: writing is a word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence process; all writing involves a sequence of choices.
- RLW purpose: identify authorial choices to understand how those choices might arise in your own writing.
- Reading to learn about writing, not just to understand content.
- Reflect on how authorial choices influence your responses as a reader.
- Goal: locate the most important writerly choices (from large-scale structure to single words) and imagine alternate choices and their effects on readers.
What does it mean to Read Like a Writer (RLW)?
- You examine the writerly techniques in a text to decide whether to adopt similar techniques in your own writing.
- You consider how choices shape reader response and try to anticipate how different choices would affect readers.
- You may model your own writing after the techniques observed, not just the content.
- Example: beginning an essay with a quote—evaluate advantages, disadvantages, and audience reaction; decide whether to use the technique in your own writing.
- Wendy Bishop’s perspective (as cited):
- Quote: "It wasn't until I claimed the sentence as my area of desire, interest, and expertise—until I wanted to be a writer writing better that I had to look underneath my initial readings. … I started asking, how-how did the writer get me to feel, how did the writer say something so that it remains in my memory when many other things too easily fall out, how did the writer communicate his/her intentions about genre, about irony?" (119-120)
- Moran and others view RLW as a way to see writing as a craft students can study and replicate.
- The metaphor of reading like an architect/carpenter (Allen Tate; David Jauss):
- Tate: reading like an architect means focusing on construction for building or creating; two modes of reading correspond to two ways we engage with architecture.
- Jauss: reading won’t help unless you read like a writer; examine details to see how it was made.
How RLW is different from normal reading
- Normal reading often aims for information: recipes, sports results, social media, history, or course syllabi.
- RLW asks for something different: to understand how the text was constructed to learn about writing.
- Allen Tate’s two readings framed as two purposes: historical analysis vs. architectural (construction-focused) analysis.
- The concept of reading like an architect or carpenter emphasizes construction and craft over surface meaning alone.
Why learn to read like a writer?
- RLW helps you see writing as a series of choices and anticipate the decisions you might face in your own writing.
- Moran emphasizes that reading with attention to writerly decisions helps you write with awareness of intended effects.
- Moran and other scholars argue that students are already authors through prior writing experience; this gives them an advantage in noticing writerly moves.
- RLW is a powerful way to learn writing by analyzing how others write.
Context and preparation before reading
- Context factors to consider before you start reading:
- Do you know the author’s purpose for this piece?
- Do you know the intended audience?
- Context questions can influence how you evaluate writerly choices.
- Example: beginning an essay with a President Obama quote may be effective if the purpose is to address warfare drawbacks; less so for sunscreen messaging at the beach.
- Historical context of the writing can influence interpretation and evaluation.
- Jamie’s suggestion: learn about the historical context of the writings.
- Richard Straub on context: you read within a set of circumstances, for a specific audience and purpose.
Genre as a context for reading
- Genre is more than label; it determines conventions and how techniques land with readers.
- Different genres demand different techniques (poems, newspaper articles, essays, short stories, novels, legal briefs, manuals).
- The conventions of each genre shape what readers expect and how effective certain moves are.
- Mike’s example: signaling words in philosophy vs. dialogue and narration in fiction; different narrational approaches (omniscient, impersonal, psychological, realistic).
- RLW is effective for both published and student writing as a way to study craft.
Published vs student-produced writing
- Reading published work with RLW recognizes that all writing can be improved and that choices could have been made differently.
- Nancy Walker’s view: reading published work as RLW reveals immediacy and texture and invites consideration of how different choices might have produced different effects.
- This practice helps you anticipate similar decisions in your own writing.
Knowing what kind of writing you will be asked to produce
- Prioritization is essential: you cannot analyze every possible move, so focus on what will be most relevant to your own assignments.
- Jessie’s insight: readings in college aim to influence or inspire your own writing; RLW helps you examine how to model particular styles.
- If a model shows highly-emotional or humorous writing, RLW helps you assess whether to adopt similar techniques.
Questions to ask before and while reading
- Contextual questions (before reading):
- What is the author’s purpose?
- Who is the intended audience?
- Genre-aware questions (during reading):
- How does the author move from one idea to another? Are transitions effective?
- What kinds of evidence are used? Are statistics, quotes, anecdotes, or citations employed?
- How formal or informal is the language? Is the tone appropriate for the subject and audience?
- Are there places of confusion? What about those places makes them unclear?
- The kinds of questions you ask depend on the genre and the expected outcomes of your own writing.
- It’s normal to feel confused; use questions to identify what tripped you up and learn to avoid similar issues in your writing.
What you should be writing as you read
- Mark up the text: write in the margins, highlight, and take notes.
- When marking, try to answer three questions on your notes for each highlighted passage:
- What is the technique the author is using here?
- Is this technique effective?
- What would be the advantages and disadvantages if you tried this same technique in your writing?
- The goal is to build a concrete, usable list of writerly techniques you can draw from when you write.
RLW in action: applying the method to the opening paragraph
- Opening paragraph under RLW analysis: a personal story about working in a famous London theater during the Les Misérables run.
- Initial self-check questions (before deeper reading):
- What is the author’s purpose for this piece?
- Who is the intended audience?
- What is the genre? Is this an essay or something else?
- Is the piece published or student-written? How does that affect expectations?
- Will you be asked to write something like this yourself?
- The exercise demonstrates how to think about how a paragraph opens, what details are chosen, and what effect they create.
- Specific analysis cues include: the level of detail (location, ownership by Andrew Lloyd Webber), the relationship to credibility (college, London), and the rhetorical effect of naming specific details.
- The author invites you to consider why certain details are included and what would be lost if they were omitted.
- Language choices to examine: formality, word choice, and the potential effects of alternative wording (e.g., replacing "antiquated" with "old").
- An exercise in evaluating the effect of details and language on the reader’s perception and connection with the author.
Practical RLW routine and practice checklist
- Build a habit of questioning and annotating as you read:
- Before reading: clarify purpose and audience.
- While reading: identify writerly techniques and evidence types; assess transitions, tone, and clarity.
- After reading: summarize the techniques identified; reflect on how you might use one or more of them in your own writing.
- For every text, consider:
- What would I do differently if I were the author? What effect would that have on readers?
- Which techniques align with the kind of writing I am being asked to produce?
Broader implications and connections
- RLW connects to foundational principles of writing pedagogy: students should study writing to learn how it’s built, not just what it says.
- It aligns with the idea that writers make deliberate choices to achieve specific effects, and readers respond to those choices.
- Ethical and practical implications: RLW encourages critical thinking about how texts influence readers and the potential political or rhetorical effects of techniques like quoting public figures or using humor.
- Real-world relevance: RLW is applicable to professional writing, journalism, academic writing, creative writing, and any text where influencing readers is a goal.
Key quotes and ideas to remember
- "Reading Like a Writer is about identifying writerly techniques to understand how those techniques might arise in your own writing. You are reading to learn about writing." (paraphrase of main idea)
- Allen Tate: two reading modes correspond to two ways of engaging with architecture; as architects we learn construction to build; as historians we study history of the columns.
- David Jauss: "reading won't help you much unless you learn to read like a writer. You must look at a book the way a carpenter looks at a house someone else built, examining the details in order to see how it was made."
- Wendy Bishop: modifying reading practice by focusing on sentences as sites of desire and expertise; analyzing how writers evoke memory and intention.
- Nancy Walker: RLW helps the text become a living utterance; different choices could have produced different effects.
- Alison, Jamie, Lola, Jessie: context, audience, and purpose are central to reading like a writer; prior experiences in writing help in recognizing writerly moves.
Discussion prompts (from the text)
- How is RLW similar to or different from how you read in other classes?
- What writerly choices do you tend to make that readers might notice in your own writing?
- Is there a technique you noticed in this essay you’d like to try in your own writing? When will you try it?
- What are different ways to learn about the context of a text before you read?
Works cited (referenced thinkers)
- Bishop, Wendy. "Reading, Stealing, and Writing Like a Writer." Elements of Alternate Style: Essays on Writing and Revision. 1997.
- Jauss, David. "Articles of Faith." Creative Writing in America: Theory and Pedagogy. 1989.
- Moran, Charles. "Reading Like a Writer." Vital Signs 1. 1990.
- Straub, Richard. "Responding-Really Responding-to Other Students' Writing." The Subject is Reading. 2000.
- Tate, Allen. "We Read as Writers." Princeton Alumni Weekly. 1940.
- Walker, Nancy. "The Student Reader as Writer." ADE Bulletin 1993.
Final takeaway
- RLW is a structured approach to reading that treats texts as crafted artifacts with deliberate choices.
- By practicing RLW, you build a toolkit of techniques and a heightened awareness of how to design your own writing to achieve specific reader responses.