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MEETING 8
RESPONDING TO NON FICTION

A. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lesson, students are able to:

1. Read critically by responding to the response questions to nonfiction.
2. Analyze, examine, explain, and support their personal responses to the reading of
nonfiction texts.

B. MATERIAL DESCRIPTION

Responding to nonfiction

Reading is an active skill. When we read we need to activate our thinking in order to
make an assumption or to comprehend the content. The reading skills that we use such
as skimming, scanning, making inference, previewing, and others are the strategies that
readers use to activate their thinking in reading. In addition, specifically in critical
reading, there are reading responses prompts. These prompts can be used for fictions
and non-fictions. This chapter mainly discusses reading responses to non-fictions

Critical reading responses to nonfiction will ask students to further analyze, examine,
explain, and support their personal responses to the reading. This is done by exploring
the text for the personal agreement or disagreement of the text's details such as the
purpose of reading and the content. Another aspect such as finding the parts in the text
that the readers like or dislike can also be part of question prompt in responding to non-
fiction. The main part of critical reading responses to non-fictions is to give critics to
the text. Critics to the text are not the product of finding weakness of the text but that is
rather a product of analysis based on the reader’s opinions. The questions are not for
finding correct or incorrect answers about the text but for the students to critically give
opinions based on their personal analysis. In their responses, hence, when giving the
critics readers need to vividly explain the arguments and evidence that they find in the

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texts in order to support their critics. Critics without arguments or evidences are not the
purpose of reading responses in critical reading.

Criticizing with supports

Reading responses questions to non-fictions can be divided into two factors: the
principle of the text and the form of the text.

1. The principle of the text is regarding the credibility of the content and the
acceptability of the content to the word’s principles such as culture, gender, and
whether the content is factual. Example questions of giving critics to your reading
from the aspect of principle :
Is the reading being racist?
Does the text mock any social and political groups such as religions,
ethnics, culture, nationality, women or men, or other groups?
Does the text contain hoaxes or nonfactual information or even lies?
Does it spread negativity?
Does it include falsely positive information?

2. The form of the text is the aspect of language presentation, construction, and
meaning.
a. Presentation is how the layout of the text is presented such as data presentation,
pictures, or other figures presented in the text. Example of questions about
presentation are
Have the figures and numbers shown too excessively?
Are the pictures shown in the text relevant to the topic?
b. Construction is the accuracy on how the sentences are written in the text such
The choice of vocabulary and the mechanics ( grammar and punctuation)
and the clarity of the text:
Example of questions about construction are:
§ Does the text have many sentence error
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§ Grammar or spelling errors?

§ Is the word choice appropriate?
§ Is it coherent?
§ Are the ideas connected?

c. The last factor is meaning which refers to how the point of view of the
writers presented in the text and how it leads to the perception of the
readers. Example of questions about meaning are:
§ Is it offensive?
§ Is it too subjective?
§ Is the point being clearly presented?

In giving the critics to the above aspects, readers need to give reasons and examples.
Failing in giving examples will make the critics unacceptable and it might be concluded
as only the readers' inability to understand and appreciate the text. As it has been
mentioned earlier, responding to response questions is not intended to find the correct or
incorrect answers about the text. As it is personal reactions based on critical
examination on the text the readers should elaborate the reasons to support the opinions.
Therefore, answers such as "I like this article because it is interesting" or "I do not like
this text because it is not good and boring" can not be accepted as there are no
explanation on what makes it interesting or what makes it boring. Your reading
response should be analytic and be written systematically so that the readers see your
understanding of the article you are responding

Reader Response Prompts for Nonfiction

Overall, these are the response prompts that you could answer to guide you in writing
a response to non-fictions:
1. Mention an interesting nonfiction passage that you have read this month. What
makes it interesting for you?
2. Write the summary of the text you mention in question 1.
3. Does the text have many sentence errors? Grammar or spelling errors?

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4. Is the word choice appropriate?

5. What are some of the things that you have learned from the passage?
6. Based on your personal view of the world, to what extent do you think the
text is agreeable? or disagreeable? Explain what makes it agreeable or
disagreeable.
7. Is the reading being racist?
Does it mock any social and political groups such as religions, ethnics,
culture, nationality, women or men, or other groups?
8. Does the text contain hoaxes or nonfactual information or even lies?
9. Does it spread negativity?
10. Does it include falsely positive information?
11. Do you like the text? What makes you like it? Write expressions of
compliment to the writer and to the text.
12. Is it offensive? Is it too subjective?
13. Is the point being clearly presented?

14. What do you know about the author?

15. How do you think the story will be like if you turn this nonfiction text into
a fiction text? Write the fiction of the text version briefly.
16. What are the contexts of Who? What? When? Where? and Why? of
the text.
17. Do you think the text is enjoyable to read? Does it entertain you?
18. Relates the passage with your personal life experiences. Are there

similarities? Explain your answer

A. QUESTIONS FOR EXERCISE / ASSIGNMENT

Read the articles below Choose of them and answer questions 'readers response

prompts for nonfiction' number 1-16 mentioned in the material description above:

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Should Cellphone Use by Drivers Be Illegal?

Janet P. Froetscher is president of the National Safety Council.

More than 50 research studies have reported the risks of cellphone use while
driving. Talking on a cellphone while driving makes a person four times more
likely to be in a crash. This is a much higher risk than most other distracting
activities, including eating, drinking, reading billboards, listening to the radio, or
talking to other passengers. It’s the cellphone conversation that diverts people’s
attention from the road.

The National Safety Council has called for a total ban on cellphone use while
driving because more than 100 million people are engaged in this high-risk activity
every day. We do not support laws that would permit the use of hands-free
devices, because there is no scientific evidence that those devices are any safer for
drivers.

Hands-free-only laws send the wrong message and may actually encourage more
unsafe behavior. In fact, hands-free-only laws tend to send the wrong message —
that drivers can safely talk on phones without getting into crashes. And such laws
may actually do harm, if drivers, lulled into a false perception of safety, start using
hands-free phones to make more calls and talk longer.

Some argue that the cellphone laws are not enforceable. But many law
enforcement officers involved in the setting of our policy don’t agree. There are
various approaches available, and there are some good models to follow.

For example, a “high visibility mobilization” strategy — letting drivers know laws
will be enforced — has been developed to enforce drunk driving, speeding, seat
belts, child safety seats and graduated licensing for teens. With this approach,
several times each year, people are informed that law enforcement is paying
special attention to a particular law.

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These programs are designed to increase compliance with a law, not to write more
tickets. The science is clear: high visibility mobilizations can cause people to
change their high-risk behavior and comply with the law. The same model could
be use to increase compliance with cellphone laws.

Laws, of course, are not the only way to address this problem. Educating people
about the risks and the science is also important. Verizon Wireless, one of the
major carriers, does this well on its Web site: “For your well being and the well
being of those around you, you should consider turning your phone off and
allowing calls to go to Voice Mail while you are driving.” That message needs to
go mainstream.

Total Bans May Be Impractical

David Champion is director of automobile testing at Consumer Reports.

There is no question that talking on a cellphone while driving is a dangerous

distraction. The issue that has caused much debate is the magnitude of the
distraction. Many studies have shown that the level of distraction has more to do
with the intensity of the conversation and not whether the phone is hand-held or
hands-free. An in-depth conversation that requires a good deal of thought causes a
higher level of distraction than a relatively short “Can you pick up milk on the way
home, Honey” type of call.

Both the length and intensity of the call increase the risk of a crash. The longer the
call or the more in-depth or emotional the conversation is, the more the driver
concentrates on the call rather than on his or her driving.

Why not make the punishment for crashes caused by cellphone use extremely
high?

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According to a study by the University of Utah cellphone users drive slower, pass
less often and take longer to get to their destination. Compared with undistracted
drivers, those who used cellphones drove an average of 2 miles per hour slower.
This is a good sign, but even driving slowly can cause accidents because annoyed
drivers who are being held up may drive recklessly to pass the cellphone user.

Whether it’s talking on a cellphone, eating or drinking, adjusting the radio, or

programming your navigation system, increasingly, it seems that driving is not
always the top priority in the car.

Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 100-Car Study indicated
that if a driver takes his eyes off of the road for more than two seconds, it greatly
increases the risk of a crash. Together with the intensity of the conversation,
cellphone use is becoming a major cause of road crashes and fatalities. Texting
while driving raises this level of risk exponentially. Ultimately, if the studies show
that talking on a cellphone provides the equivalent impairment of having a blood
alcohol level of 0.8 — the limit to drive a car in most states — the use of
cellphones while driving should be banned.

This is probably an impractical solution, but since other restrictions all have their
own issues, the best solution in the near term is to warn drivers with public service
announcements of the risks involved with cellphone use and make the punishment
for crashes caused by cellphone use extremely high.

https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/should-cellphone-use-by-
drivers-be-illegal/

B. REFERENCES
Mikulecky, Beatric S, Linda Jeffries.2000. Advance Reading Power. Addison-Wesley
Publishing Company
https://www.dailyteachingtools.com/reader-response-questions.html

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https://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/should-cellphone-use-by-drivers-
be-illegal/
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/introliterature/chapter/reader-response-criticism/

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