Week 8 Post

    According to Applegate, students have many different reading behaviors.  So much so, these different behaviors began to form a pattern which allowed Applegate to define 8 different groups of reading comprehension and behaviors.  First, there are the Literalists who prefer answering questions directly from the test.  Therefore, literalists do very well when a teacher asks Recall questions; however, they tend to perform more poorly on standarized tests which do not require all literal reading.  Next, Fuzzy Thinkers are a group of students who comprehend information very vaguely and imprecisely.  They are able to answer most questions asked of them, but not able to explain evidence to back up their answers.  Third, Left Fielders are students who answer questions with information that has little or nothing to do with the text.  However, they are able to elaborate on their answers with a large amount of confidence.  Moving on, Quiz Contestants are students similar to Left Fielders.  They often answer questions to the text based on logical thinking rather from what they just read.  Quiz Contestants answers, though disconnected from the text, are usually more logical than Left Fielder’s answers though. Fifth, Politicians are students who answer questions with what they think you want to hear.  Therefore, it is common for them to be unable to back up their answers with evidence.  Sixth, Dodgers are students who dodge answering a question they don’t feel comfortable answering.  They’ll often reword the question and respond to the new question they came up with.  The more sophisticated a dodger is, the closer their new question will relate to the original question.  Next, Authors are students who often write very long responses because they feel they do not know the exact answer, but want to show they at least recall a lot form the story.  Lastly, Minimalists are students who answer with simple responses and very rarely elaborate.  There is both a Type A and Type B which explains different reasoning behind Minimalist’s short answers.  After looking back at all the types, I think I would fit in best with the literalists.  I am usually so concerned about finding an exact answer that a teacher may be looking for, that I lose confidence in myself to come up with my own answer.  Thinking back on assignments and quizzes that I have taken throughout my educational career, I almost always perform better on questions based more on Recall than questions that aren’t specifically from a term or concept in the text.