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Reading Critically

Reading Critically. Eng 050. Reading Critically. You mean not only do we have to learn to write well, we have to learn to read critically? Yes, you do! In order to write well, you need to have an understanding of what good writing is, which is where critical reading comes into play.

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Reading Critically

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  1. Reading Critically Eng 050

  2. Reading Critically • You mean not only do we have to learn to write well, we have to learn to read critically? • Yes, you do! In order to write well, you need to have an understanding of what good writing is, which is where critical reading comes into play. • In this class, we’re going to read various paragraphs and essays in our book (and others as well), to learn various writing strategies, and also to expand our critical thinking skills by analyzing these writings.

  3. Critical Reading Strategies • Strategy 1: Previewing • Try to learn about the text before reading it. Our book contains synopses at the beginning of each essay that give background on the author and the essay to be read, so this will make it easy. • When doing this you not only read any introductory material, but also skim to get an overview of the content, and identify the subject to be discussed. • Learning something about the author also helps put the material into perspective.

  4. Critical Reading Strategies • Step 2: Contextualizing • The above is a fancy word for placing a text in historical, biographical or cultural context. For example, you’ll see the text in a different light when you learn something about the point of view of the author, the time in which it was written, and the purpose for which it was written. • Part of contextualizing is reading it through the lens of your own experience, and recognizing the differences between how you see the text as opposed to what the text represents.

  5. Critical Reading Strategies • Step 3: Asking questions about the text • As students you are (or will be) used to teachers asking you questions about your reading to help you understand it better. With critical reading, you in turn employ these same strategies to the text you are reading. Write as many questions to yourself as you need (generally each paragraph or section), focusing on the main idea of the text. Don’t ask what you think you should ask, but questions that interest you.

  6. Critical Reading Strategies • Step 4: Reflecting • Some of the readings we do for this class may go against your attitudes, your beliefs, or your opinions on current issues. When you read the text for the first time. As you read a text for the first time, mark an X in the margin at each point where you feel a personal challenge to your attitudes, beliefs, or status. Make a brief note in the margin about what you feel or about what in the text created the challenge. Now look again at the places you marked in the text where you felt personally challenged. What patterns do you see?  

  7. Critical Reading Strategies • Step 5: Outlining and summarizing • Outlining and summarizing are helpful strategies for understanding the content and structure of any reading selection. Outlining reveals the basic structure of the text, while summarizing captures a selection’s main argument in brief. The key to both outlining and summarizing is being able to distinguish between the main ideas and the supporting ideas and examples. • Summarizing begins with outlining, but instead of merely listing the main ideas, you summarize, or rewrite them in your own words. This helps lead to a deeper understanding of the text.

  8. Critical Reading Strategies • Step 6: Evaluating • All writers make assertions that they want you to accept as true. As a critical reader, you should not accept anything on face value but evaluate every assertion and decide if you accept it or not. • An argument has two essential parts: a claim and support. The claim asserts a conclusion—an idea, an opinion, a judgment, or a point of view—that the writer wants you to accept. The support includes reasons (shared beliefs, assumptions, and values) and evidence (facts, examples, statistics, and authorities) that give readers the basis for accepting the conclusion. • When you assess an argument, you are concerned with the process of reasoning as well as its truthfulness. Is the argument well reasoned, and are the facts used true?

  9. Critical Reading Strategies • Step 7: Comparing and contrasting related readings • Many of the authors we read are concerned with the same issues or questions, but approach how to discuss them in different ways. Fitting a text into an ongoing discussion helps increase understanding of why an author approached a particular issue or question in the way he or she did.

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