Topic 5.1: Critical Reading
Topic 5.1: Critical Reading
Critical reading is reading that accomplishes more than the acknowledgement of what a text says. In fact, of equal importance is how the text says what it says. That is, in addition to reading a text for generally accepted facts and information, you want to determine if the text engages you on an analytical or interpretive level. If you read a history text, for example, you will likely discover a certain number of widely accepted facts about an event (the who, the what, the time, and the place of the situation). You are reading for information in this case. If you approach the same text again with a critical eye, however, you realize the text invites you to interpret the events beyond basic information. The writer has taken into consideration audience, purpose, structure, language, and evidence to produce a desired response from the reader. So when you read critically, you take into consideration the writer, what his objective is, who he is writing for, and how he goes about making an impact on the reader.
Your reading in this module, "How to Read Like a Writer Links to an external site." by Mike Bunn, will help you focus on the carefully crafted choices authors make to influence critical responses in readers (72). As you read like a writer, you will observe "the way [a] text is written that makes you feel and respond the way you do" (72). Bunn begins his chapter with a personal narrative about working in London at the Palace Theatre. The rest of the chapter reveals how readers can analyze texts through a process of reading critically. The first process includes surveying the text for an author's purpose, intended audience, and genre. The next steps include analyzing the language of the text, the claims (and support) of the text, and the effectiveness of the evidence. Finally, the reader looks for areas that are confusing or unclear and evaluates the way the author moves from one idea to the next.
Bunn returns to the narrative at the beginning of his chapter to demonstrate the critical reading process, so you have a nice example of theory and practice working together within this module. As you learn to read like a writer, your investigation of a writer's choices should help you make choices in your own writing.
Your reading in this module also gives you an opportunity to practice reading like a writer with an article by Susan Orleans called "A Place Called Midland Links to an external site.." The article focuses on the town of Midland, TX. While multiple rhetorical modes are employed in the piece (namely narration and description), the text is more than a good story. Pay close attention to the way the author addresses politics, oil drilling, wealth, poverty (to name a few). Would the piece be written differently by another author if the subject remained the same? You will read this article using the strategies you have learned in "How to Read Like a Writer," so do not attempt this exercise without completing that reading first.
As as you read "A Place Called Midland" you should keep in mind the advice in the section "What Should You Be Writing As You Are Reading" in "How to Read Like a Writer." In that section, Bunn encourages interaction with the text by asking "what is the technique the author is using here? Is the technique effective?" (81). Most important, are these techniques ones you would want to use in your own writing? Think of reading as a recursive process (like the writing process), circling back to reading more than one time after you do an initial survey of a text. When you read critically, you discover the different layers of meaning within the text. There is never one reading of a work. Only rereading. As you complete your writing assignment for this text, focus on appropriate and effective writing, not simply whether you liked or disliked something. As Bunn points out, "Deciding whether you liked or disliked something is only about you; considering whether a technique is appropriate or effective lets you contemplate what the author might have been trying to do and to decide whether a majority of readers would find the move successful" (81).
Assignments
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