“I Don't Feel Like I'm a Good Reader"

Graduate reading is not a monolithic enterprise: mastering one reading strategy, framework, or approach cannot perfectly prepare graduate readers for success. However, many graduate readers hold onto an idealized construction of what reading should look like (i.e., fast, effective, effortless), which ignores readers’ positionalities and experiential knowledge. To create diverse descriptions of graduate reading, graduate students and graduate instructors must work together by drawing on Victoria House’s theory of distributed definition building (DDB)—an intentional, collaborative method for arriving at a shared understanding of complex or contested terms grounded in contributors’ positionalities. Reflecting on our experience of developing The Graduate Reading Exchange (TGRE) at the 2024 Watson Conference, we consider how the project might have benefitted from a more explicit application of DDB to frame our collective work and to encourage iterative accounts of reading. Thus, we call for graduate students and instructors to collaboratively investigate reading practices in ways that both account for a variety of practices and challenge prescriptive ideals.