The QUEST for an approach to guided

critical reading and writing

GARY BARKHUIZEN – Department of Applied Language Studies and
Linguistics, University of Auckland, New Zealand

ABSTRACT
When students write about something which they have read (for example, a criti-
cal review of a text), they often encounter problems with the style, content and
authority of their written responses. This article introduces an approach to critical
reading and writing, the QUEST analysis, which provides students with guidance
in the form of leading questions. ELT students in two different settings were
asked their opinions of using the QUEST analysis approach when reviewing aca-
demic articles for assignment purposes. Their comments, together with my own
observations, are used to consider its application in a range of different contexts.

Introduction
Over the years as a language teacher educator I have often been disappointed
by the quality of critical analysis produced by students when reviewing the
written work of others. Usually, the written text under review has been in
the form of published, typically research-based, academic articles, and the
students’ responses have taken the form of academic essays. In order to resolve
some of the problems experienced by the students, I have developed an
approach to critical reading and writing which provides them with guidance
in the form of leading questions; questions which students ask themselves
when reading the text and when planning their written responses.
In this article I begin by explaining what I mean by critical reading and
writing, and then discuss some of the problems my ELT students have experi-
enced with this type of task. Next, I introduce the QUEST analysis by giving
an overview of its aims and structure. Although numerous other approaches
to critical reading have been considered (see, for example, Nuttall 1982;
Collie and Slater 1987), the QUEST analysis approach is the outcome of my
personal reflections as a teacher educator together with my collaborative
efforts with students to find a solution to some of our concerns. I then report
on recent experiences of using the QUEST analysis in two different ELT
contexts. Finally, I suggest ways in which the approach could be applied to
other reading and writing classroom contexts.

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GARY BARKHUIZEN

Critical reading and writing

Leki and Carson (1997) investigated the sources of information for writing
tasks in university classes. One source was text which students then had to
account for in some way: ‘they must produce text-responsible prose based on
content acquired primarily from text’ (1997: 41). In other words, there is
reading and then writing based on the content of that reading. It is this
connection between reading and writing which is the focus of this article.
The first step in making the reading critical is the comprehension of the
text. Students need to demonstrate an understanding of the source text. This
includes both literal comprehension, or the understanding of the language
and content of the text, and inferential comprehension, or the understanding
of the relationship between main ideas and supporting details, logical organ-
isation of ideas, conclusions drawn, and so on (He 2000). It is impossible to
undertake a critical analysis of a text if its content is not understood in the
first place.
One component of the critical analysis of the text is its evaluation –
judgements about content (Grabe and Kaplan 1996). The evaluation needs to
be objective: What supporting evidence has been supplied from the literature
and from the writer’s own data? Are the statistics, the facts, the references,
et cetera accurate? Has anything been left out? Is the report complete? The
evaluation must also, essentially, be subjective: What is its relevance, to the
reviewer and to the discipline? Does it make a contribution to the field?
Where is the writer coming from? Are there are biases, values, morals evident?
Does the writer look at the bigger picture and address any sociopolitical
concerns?
Finally, to complete a critical analysis of a text, students need to consider
its emotional and aesthetic impact (Johns 1997). Here they would include
their appreciation of the language and style used in the text. Is it, for example,
accessible and appropriate for the audience? The analysis would also include
reactions to visuals (including tables, graphs and pictures), structural conven-
tions and any imagery used.

Students’ problems
In this section, I consider some of the problems I have encountered with the
quality of the written critical reviews attempted by my ELT students; that is,
why it is that they fall short of producing critical responses which fulfil the
criteria described above. Obviously, no one student exhibited all of these
problems in any one essay; the list provided below is a collection of problems
gathered from a number of students in a range of different classes.

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 THE QUEST FOR AN APPROACH TO GUIDED CRITICAL READING AND WRITING

1 In their written responses students tend to summarise rather than critically

review the text; that is, their writing is more description than reaction.
2 Students claim that they have no or only limited knowledge of the text’s
subject matter and therefore feel that they have no authority to question
its content. Vandrick (1996: 28) points out that these students ‘have little
sense that these materials are written, edited, and published by fallible
human beings with their own blind spots and biases’, and suggests that
‘students need to be reminded of these facts rather explicitly’.
3 Written reviews are either too personal or too distant. Where they are
too personal, there is too much emphasis on the student’s life as a former
language learner or as a practising teacher. Where they are too distant,
the responses appear overly academic or detached from the life of the
student; no personal voice comes through.
4 Students are sometimes too ‘nice’. They let writers off the hook, neglecting
to comment on glaring problems, or they claim to see no problems at all,
praising the writer sometimes undeservedly. On the other hand, some
students are too ‘picky’, pointing out spelling errors, inappropriate
punctuation or the over-use of particular vocabulary items.
5 There is no balance between positive and negative opinions, with students
displaying too much of one or the other and not giving coherence to any
particular argument.
6 Students do not know what questions to ask about the text, not only in
terms of its content, but also in terms of academic style, research proce-
dures, organisational conventions of an academic article, and so on.
7 Students do not know how to structure a critical review; that is, how to
organise the answers to the questions they ask in 6 above. For example,
is it an essay or is it a report?

The QUEST analysis

The aim of the QUEST analysis is to provide a form of scaffolding to the
students who write the critical review. I use the term ‘scaffolding’ in the same
way as Vygotsky (1987) to refer to collaborative instruction in which the
teacher guides the student to a solution to a problem or to completion of a
task which they could otherwise not solve or complete by themselves. The
scaffolding in the QUEST analysis takes the form of leading questions
which move students forward along the path of successful review writing.
This moving forward by means of leading questions is what I mean by
guided critical reading and writing.
It is important to note, however, that the QUEST analysis is not the final
destination; it is not a model method for writing a critical review. Instead, it

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GARY BARKHUIZEN

is part of the scaffolding which directs students towards that goal. To sum up,
then, the aim of the leading questions is to guide the students towards satis-
factory comprehension, evaluation and appreciation of the source text, and
then to report, in writing, on their findings.
The QUEST analysis takes the following form:
Q = What Questions do you have after reading the article?
For example, anything you don’t understand?
any issues you’d like to debate further?
anything you’d like to know more about?
U = What in the article are you Unhappy about?
For example, any weaknesses in the article?
any problems in the arguments?
anything you disagree with?
E = Are there any Excellent points that got you Excited?
For example, any points you agree with?
anything that satisfied a gap in your knowledge?
anything which sparked off a research idea for you?
S = What are the Strengths of the article?
For example, is it well written?
is it critical?
does it confirm some of your beliefs and experiences?
T = What are the most important Themes in the article?
For example, what is the main message in the article?
are there useful recommendations related to these themes?
what can YOU take away from the article?
These questions cover all the areas of successful critical reading and writing
which I described above, and provide students who are doing the analysis
with opportunities to be objective, academic and detached. Students can also
evaluate the text subjectively, by voicing their opinions and judgments about
content, structure and worth. Finally, there is a place for reviewers to be
personal, to include their perceptions of the text’s relevance to their own
ideas, experience and contexts.
Section Q asks students to think about questions they may have after
having read the article. Section U focuses on negative evaluation and appre-
ciation. Section E focuses on positive opinions, but the focus is on specific
points or parts of the article. Section S also focuses on the positive, but this
time on the article as a whole. Finally, Section T asks students to pay close
attention to the content, conclusions and implications of the article.

Trial 1
The first time I used the QUEST analysis was with four postgraduate ELT

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student teachers at a South African university. The 13-week Curriculum

Theory and Practice course aimed to provide an introduction to topics in
applied language studies. As part of the course assessment, the students were
required to do a series of QUEST analyses. They were given the following
instructions:
Instructions
Each week you will be required to write a three-page (maximum) QUEST
analysis. A QUEST analysis works as follows:
1 Each week you will be assigned a reading to read and to respond to.
2 Your response will take the form of a short essay. It will include a brief
introduction (which should include a short summary of the reading), the
five sections of the QUEST analysis (in any order, but clearly identifiable)
and a conclusion.
3 The five sections of the analysis are attached.
4 The analysis will be assessed according to the following criteria:
a) The clarity of writing
b) The level of critical analysis
c) The relationship to personal experience
d) The integration of other significant readings.
5 The assigned readings will not always be discussed in the seminars (they
may, however, when their contents overlap with the topic of a particular
seminar).
6 The purpose of the weekly QUEST analysis is to expose you to significant
classic and current readings in the fields of applied language studies and
curriculum development.

TRIAL 1: MY FEEDBACK
The students did a lot of reading, and they got a lot of practice in writing
critical responses to published text. The students found the questions and
the framework provided by the analysis helpful. The four students (see later)
and I, however, found the analyses too time-consuming. I initially planned
for the students to do 12 readings, one each week except for the first week
of the course, but after the first half of the semester we decided to reduce
the analyses to one every other week. In a class of more than four students,
even this reduced frequency may have been too much, if not impossible, for
the teacher to manage. The following are my observations of what some of
the students produced.

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GARY BARKHUIZEN

1 TESQU and TESUQ are probably a more logical sequence of the sections,
but this was not exploited and students stuck to the QUEST arrangement.
2 The introduction (which included the summary) was too long. Obviously,
students were avoiding the actual review by doing more of what they
could do better, that is, the summary.
3 The students’ writing was sometimes in point-form notes, rather than in
an academic prose style.
4 Students were unsure of the genre of the analysis, and their writing style
reflected this. They wavered between a formal, academic style and a con-
versational, journal-writing style.
5 There was no clear demarcation (and labelling) of the five sections. It was
left to me, the reader, to figure out when students were doing Q, or U,
et cetera. In other words, and despite the instructions, they tended to avoid
writing in sections and to write a holistic review instead.
6 In some of the sections, students responded by merely supplying a list of
direct quotations from the article, or there would be a series of quotations
each followed by a one-line comment.
7 Under Section Q, students listed their questions, but did not include a
comment or discussion of these.
8 Almost no other reading was done, even though it was encouraged and
listed as one of the assessment criteria.
TRIAL 1: STUDENTS’ FEEDBACK
At the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the semester, I asked the
students to evaluate their experiences of doing QUEST analyses. Their feed-
back was both positive and negative, and can be divided into the following
categories (under each category I provide representative, self-explanatory
samples of the students’ comments):
1 Depth of reading
‘I think it’s a brilliant way to get us to really read the article – having to
respond to guideline questions means the temptation to scan or skim
evaporates.’
2 Critical reading
‘I really enjoy the deconstructing and then the reconstructing that goes
into it – it’s an attempt to make an academic masterpiece.’
‘I found the QUESTS to be the most worthwhile academic work I’ve
done all semester, they combine writing skills and critical thinking skills
(and just getting the essential readings done) perfectly. I also found that
you marked them with an ‘engaged’ eye, which gave the whole process
that added edge of external motivation.’

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3 Time-consuming
‘Too much work!’
‘I am still enjoying them, but only once I get started – I don’t always have
much enthusiasm beforehand. This is probably because I find them
incredibly time-consuming.’
4 Writing style
‘My worry is to do with having been indoctrinated and dominated by
academic styles. During undergrad you’re told so often that casual writing
is the devil that it becomes your personal red-horned beast. This task
seems to need an integration of both casual and formal styles, personal
and academic. I find it difficult to choose which when.’
‘My main concern is the problem of not knowing in what written style
our responses should be. It tends to be lingering on the fringes of being a
conversational interaction with my lecturer but at the same time the
technical mistakes are penalised in the same way as in an academic essay.
I need further clarity on this.’
5 Personal experience
‘The QUEST analyses broadened my knowledge about teaching and pro-
vided me with practical ideas to reduce instability in my class. The critical
study of other researchers’ and educationists’ viewpoints led me to be more
reflective about my teaching and strengthened my own practices.’
‘What worries me is the fact that it will be assessed in terms of personal
experience. I don’t feel I have much to contribute, but I suppose I can look
at the issues from the perspective of a student or a trainee.’
6 Guided response
‘The fact that the task is so neatly structured also helps. Without the
Q-U-E-S-T outline, trying to dissect the article and then synthesise it in
three pages would be a mammoth exercise.’
‘The student is guided along by the fact that a framework is supplied.
This framework is easy to follow.’
7 Relate to seminar work
‘I would have liked us to discuss or just touch on the ‘quest analysis’
theories and practices in our class and verify or explore each other’s view-
points.’
8 No questions
‘I am not sure whether the questions I always ask help the cause of this
quest analysis, because sometimes an article is so clear and straightforward
to the extent that I have no questions to ask. This means I will be asking
questions for the sake of asking them.’

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GARY BARKHUIZEN

Trial 2
Having learned a number of lessons from Trial 1, I tried the QUEST analysis
approach to critical reading and writing in a different context: 12 MA (ELT)
students in a Sociolinguistics for Language Teachers class at a New Zealand
university. This time, the analysis was a one-off assignment, rather than a series
of analyses. The students were required to find their own article or chapter
to review in the field of sociolinguistics and language education, since the
aim of the task was to get them to search through the relevant literature so
that they could become acquainted with publications in the field, as well as
to produce a written critical review.
Assignment instructions were similar to those given to students in Trial 1.
The differences were as follows:
1 A short introductory paragraph explained the purpose of the analysis.
2 Word limits were given for the introduction (250), the conclusion (250)
and the five sections (altogether 1000 words).
3 Suggestions were made as to which academic journals were likely to contain
appropriate articles.
4 A mini-workshop was held during one of the lectures to go through the
QUEST analysis procedures step-by-step.

TRIAL 2: FEEDBACK
The workshop and the clear instructions seemed to have taken care of most
procedural difficulties, and I found that the students produced insightful,
coherent reviews. The students, in written feedback given after their assign-
ments were returned, were positive about the experience. Some of their
comments were similar to those made by the students in Trial 1, with the
following additional categories:
1 Flexibility of sections
‘I’ve enjoyed very much to carry on with the method of analysis. I found it
was a kind of balanced way to look at an issue. Obviously I did not follow
the same order, as it was allowed, and it was even better in a way; that is, a
flexible sequence. Generally, it was a very useful tool.’
2 Providing guidance
‘It’s like a walking stick which facilitates a student when he/she is attempting
to write an academically presentable paper.’
‘I found this an excellent framework for writing a review. My problem was
trying to just cover each letter one at a time rather than letting the ideas
flow. Maybe the QUEST format is better because it forces you to struc-
ture your ideas.’

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3 Overlap of sections
‘It was good to have these four sections to analyse logically. But when I
started writing, what I wanted to include in each section, there was some
overlap, and it was a bit difficult to decide how I should distribute those
ideas.’
‘I do think that Excited and Strengths were a bit too similar. If the idea is to
write equal amounts about each letter, perhaps the two ought to be com-
bined. Another idea – maybe Excited could be broadened.’
4 More support needed
‘It’s very hard to dig deeply (comment on) the contents of the article at
my level. I think we need to read more supporting materials along with
the article to do the QUEST analysis.’

Further application of the QUEST analysis

In this article, I have described the use of the QUEST analysis in two differ-
ent contexts. In both, the students who wrote the critical review were ELT
student teachers with varying levels of experience in the classroom, and all
were studying at the postgraduate level. Also, in both contexts the QUEST
analysis involved reading a published, research-based article and then
responding to it for assessment purposes in the form of a written review; in
the South African context, a series of weekly and then biweekly responses;
and in the New Zealand context, a one-off assignment.
There are, of course, numerous alternatives to this arrangement. The texts
which students read could be varied. Text, in the broadest sense of the word,
could include newspaper and magazine articles, other students’ writing, film
and theatre, websites, and literary works, for example.
The QUEST analysis could be used for other students in different con-
texts. It could be used in general ESL classes, at any level, and it certainly
has a place in ESL reading and writing classes. Since comprehending and
evaluating text is one of the major tasks for school and university students,
the QUEST analysis also has a place in EAP (and ESP) classes. Although
I have presented the QUEST analysis as a static framework in this article, it
need not be, and it certainly would need to be adapted for use in contexts
different from those I have described in this article; for example, as has been
shown, there is no need to follow strictly the sequence of the QUEST
sections. Some of the sub-questions in each section could be deleted, and
others added depending on the nature of the course, and the proficiency
level and needs of students. It is also not necessary always to complete all
five sections; one, or more, could be chosen for practising or for teaching a
particular review skill.

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GARY BARKHUIZEN

The QUEST analysis approach, therefore, is a versatile one. It is also

a thorough one. It requires students, in whatever context, to read a text care-
fully and cautiously, and to relate whatever is read to one’s own ideas and
beliefs. And most important, it demands that students be critical. It is impor-
tant to remember, however, that the QUEST analysis is not a model for a
written critical review; it is a step along the way towards achieving that goal.
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Collie, J and S Slater 1987. Literature in the language classroom: A resource book for ideas
and activities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Grabe, W and R Kaplan 1996. Theory and practice of writing. New York: Longman
He, J S 2000. ‘A cognitive model for teaching reading comprehension’. English
Teaching Forum, 38, 4: 12–15
Johns, A M 1997. Text, role and context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Leki, I and J Carson 1997. ‘“Completely different worlds”: EAP and the writing expe-
riences of ESL students in university courses’. TESOL Quarterly, 31, 1: 39–69
Nuttal, C E 1982. Teaching reading skills in a foreign language. London: Heinemann
Vandrick, S 1996. ‘Teaching critical thinking and reading for peace education’. College
ESL, 6, 2: 27–36
Vygotsky, L S 1987. The collected works of L S Vygotsky, vol 1. New York: Plenum Press

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