Reading is not a neutral act

 Umberto Eco (in The Role of the Reader, 1979) states that “reading is not a neutral act; there is a series of complex relations and unique strategies that form between the reader and the text, which often modify to a significant extent the intrinsic meaning of the original text.” Similarly, Jorje Larrosa (2003:207) claims that: “…when reading, it is not that important what we think of the text, but what we think about ourselves starting from, or through the lenses of the text. If it doesn’t happen this way, then the reading is not actually happening.”

In regard to writing, Larrosa (2003:53) also states that: “ we can write only by repeating and transforming what we have read, so to write (and to read) is like diving in an abyss in which we believe we can find wonderful things. But when we return to the surface, all we have are common rocks, pieces of broken glass and something like a new anxiety in our eyes. The written (and read) text is only the visible and always disappointing trace of an adventure that, in the end, has proved impossible. And yet, we have become transformed. Writing means scratching, replacing, deleting... ".

In this respect, Anna Camps, Cassany and other researchers (Hayes and Flower, 1980; Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1987, etc.) have shown that writing is a complex activity through which the writer performs different, inter-related actions, at various levels. Probably the most widespread model is that of Hayes and Flower (1980), (1981) who see composition as an activity coordinated by the effort to achieve rhetorical goals, in which three basic processes take place: planning, textualization and revision.

On the other hand, it is relevant to highlight the essential role of writing in the construction of knowledge, especially at university level. According to Wells (2001) (cited by Vargas, 2007), the production of a written text is a powerful method of getting to understand the topic about which one is writing, considering that apart from communicating the things one understands, writing is a process through which the writer manages to understand new aspects.