12 How to Read Like a Writer

Michael Bunn’s essay “How to Read Like a Writer” comes from the book Writing Spaces. They offer the following abstract for the text: “Learning to “read like a writer” can be a great benefit to students. […] Students will find this chapter useful for expanding their writing strategies by helping them learn to identify key moments in texts, moments when the author uses an innovative technique, which they might employ in their own writing. Detailed steps and comments, incorporating the voices of numerous students, will assist you in teaching students how to practice the habit of reading like a writer.”

 Read Michael Bunn’s “How to Read Like a Writer.”

Keywords from this chapter in Writing Spaces

audience, purpose, critical reading, read like a writer, reading, reading to write, active reading, writing process, context, genre convention, reading questions

Author Bio

Michael Bunn is an Associate Professor (Teaching) of Writing in the USC Writing Program.  Professor Bunn earned a joint Ph.D. in English & Education from the University of Michigan as well as an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Pittsburgh.  He has designed and taught courses in first-year writing, literature, academic argumentation, cultural studies, creative writing, professional writing, and comedy writing.  His interdisciplinary research investigates some of the ways that reading might best be taught in collegiate writing courses, and his work appears in journals such as Pedagogy and College Composition and Communication.  From 2019-2021 he served as a member of the CCCC Task Force on Reading.  He is also a co-founder of the College Composition and Communication Special Interest Group: “The Role of Reading in Composition Studies.”