Week 8-Assignment 1

 

To gain some insight into the process of comprehension, read the following paragraph, which has been divided into a series of sentences. Stop after reading each sentence and ask yourself, “What did the sentence say? How did I go about comprehending it? What does this paragraph seem to be about?”  

 

Assignment#1Share your comprehension processes (due on Blacboard Discussion Forum, Nov. 4, by midnight) 

Without searching on Google, read the paragraph, explain to us the processes you go through to comprehend this paragraph, draw a picture of “hoatzin,” then research on hoatzin to compare your understanding of the paragraph.  

 

A hoatzin has a clever way of escaping from its enemies. 

It generally builds its home in a branch that extends over a swamp or stream. 

If an enemy approaches, the hoatzin plunges into the water below. 

Once the coast is clear, it uses its fingerlike claws to climb back up the tree. 

Hoatzins are born with claws on their wings but lose the claws as they get older. 

 

The processes in which I comprehended this paragraph was by reading each sentence then imagining what the sentence said in my head. Since I did not know what context this paragraph was taken from, it was hard to relate it to other areas of previous knowledge. After I read the first sentence, I wasn't sure if a hoatzin was a soldier or an animal. As I read the next sentences however I gathered that a hoatzin is an animal.

 

Above is the picture I drew in Paint of what I think a Hoatzin looks like.

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This is a picture of what a Hoatzin really looks like. In this case I think the differences in the pictures speak for themselves!

 

 

 

After reading the paragraph I thought that a hoatzin was a bat like creature with reptile climbing attributes. Really a hoatzin is a bird that lives in the Amazon. The hoatzin eats leaves and lives in trees. Although the imagery in my mind was a little bit off, the basic idea of what I understood and what really was were not far off from each other.