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I find that I tend to do a combination of reader-response criticism and feminist critique as outlined by Schweickart. Rather than completely resisting a text's manipulation, however, I prefer to let it manipulate me and then step back and try to understand why it was able to do so. A lot of times, I actually consider manipulative writing to be good writing because it succeeds so well in making the reader feel different emotions and question his/her beliefs (if only temporarily). I also don't think such "potentially damaging" (ie. androcentric writing) writing should always be resisted, either. I think that praxis (ie. changing the world) is also incited by those strong, personal reactions to texts that might challenge beliefs, or reveal something ugly about society (like how in A Room of One's Own, Mary discovers that so little is written about women)... so letting yourself really get caught up in it is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you remember that it's a voluntary choice. Writing can be powerful, but it is largely a product of the human mind, which can manipulate writing any which way it chooses... and when you read, you use your mind (and perhaps your heart), so you do have the power to not let it take over.

I definitely do think about and try to understand the writer behind the text, though... as it is said in Schweickart's piece... but I think I probably tend to focus more on the text itself at times. Then again, it depends on what I'm reading. I tend to take a more personal approach with non-fiction/memoir because I know there's really a person on the other side of the writing. I know that fiction can never really be entirely fiction (a piece of the writer will be in all of his/her writing no matter what it's about), but I do tend to be less likely to immediately realize the writer as the person I'm identifying with, rather than the character which exists only in text.

My last thought, in addition to all of these other jumbled thoughts, is another metaphor for the classroom. In class, I think I agreed with someone who said that a classroom, when it is working, is like a play rehearsal. I still agree with that idea, but I also thought of my own metaphor... that a classroom is also like a garden. I would explicate, but... nobody else did, so... I'll wait and see if we do that later.