Critical Reading Strategies

CRITICAL READING
STRATEGIES
Reading effectively requires approaching texts with a
critical eye: evaluating what you
read for not just what it says, but how and why it says it.
Effective reading is central to
both effective research (when you evaluate sources) and
effective writing (when you
understand how what you read is written, you can work to
incorporate those techniques
into your own writing). Being an effective reader also means
being able to evaluate your
own practices, working to develop your critical reading skills.
P S !
T I
I CK
Q U
IDENTIFY WHAT YOU’RE READING
FOR.
• Knowing why you’re reading a given text can help you organize both your
reading
and how you can use what you read.
• Before you read a text, ask and answer the following kinds of questions:
Are you
reading only for general content? For data? For specific information or for
general
thematic concerns? For arguments that support or contest your thesis in a
writing
assignment? For information that you know you’ll need for an assignment, or
for
information to get you thinking about what you’ll need?
• preview or survey the text before detailed reading begins,
looking for clues
related to its purpose, its relevance, its difficulty, and how it
connects with ideas or
information you already know.
• be willing to struggle with the text in order to understand it –
but don’t get hung up
on single, tough details in first readings. rather, hold confusing
passages in
mental suspension, and continue to read with the idea that what
seems difficult to understand now may be cleared up as you go
along.
REMEMBER THAT RE-READING IS A PART OF
EFFECTIVE, CRITICAL READING
• Just as having more than one conversation with another

person leads to closer
understanding, conducting a number of readings leads to a
richer and more
meaningful relationship with, and understanding of, a
text.
•If your first reading is for basic information and
evaluation, subsequent readings
can take on different levels of focus (on style and
tone, on details, on examples,
on intellectual or ideological tradition, etc.).
• In re-reading, work to separate parts of arguments
(e.g., thesis idea, evidence,
preview, counterarguments) and to understand how
these parts work to support
the author’s thesis.
ENGAGE WITH THE TEXT TO GET THE MOST OUT OF
IT
• Read with a pen or pencil, highlighting key statements, parts, or points – even
those you find confusing. Also, make note of words or terms you don’t
understand
so you can look them up later.
• Note where and how the text relates to lectures or discussions, as well as
general
or specific questions you might wish to ask your instructor in class or office
hours.
• Record your own questions, points of agreement or disagreement, references
to
related ideas, and points at which ideas match up with each other. In other
words,
work to enter into a dialogue with the text, mark it up, and make it your own.
ASK YOURSELF IF YOU CAN EXPLAIN BOTH
“WHAT THE TEXT SAYS” AND “WHAT IT
DOES.”
 In other words, can you both provide a summary of key claims
and theses and
understand its purpose, what this text seeks to do (to report or
state facts, to
contest a certain idea, to persuade, to open new inquiries,
etc.)?
 Keep in mind that all texts filter reality – distort, persuade,
and arrive at different
conclusions – and that all texts are trying to change your view in
some way.
ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND HOW EACH WRITER’S
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSES INFLUENCE WHAT
THEY WRITE.
• Reading a text critically requires that you ask questions about the writer’s
authority and agenda. You may need to put yourself in the author’s shoes
and
recognize that those shoes fit a certain way of thinking.
• Work to determine and understand an author’s context, purpose, and
intended
audience.
WORK TO UNDERSTAND YOUR OWN STRATEGIES AND
TO IMPROVE THEM.
•Ask yourself questions about how you read: Do you read too quickly or
slowly?
Do you tend to lose your focus? Can you scan for key information or ideas?
• Consider the characteristics of effective reading above, in relation to
those
practices and strategies you already employ, to get a sense of your current
reading strategies and how they might be improved.
Adapted from the University of Minnesota’s Student
7 CRITICAL READING
STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES
TO DO WITH STUDENTS TO
ENCOURAGE AND DEVELOP
CRITICAL READING ABILITY
1. PREVIEWING: LEARNING ABOUT A TEXT
BEFORE REALLY READING IT.
Previewing enables readers to get a sense of what the text is
about and how it is organized before reading it closely. This
simple strategy includes seeing what you can learn from the
headnotes or other introductory material, skimming to get an
overview of the content and organization, and identifying the
rhetorical situation.
2. CONTEXTUALIZING: PLACING A TEXT IN ITS HISTORICAL,
BIOGRAPHICAL, AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS.
When you read a text, you read it through the lens of your own experience.
Your
understanding of the words on the page and their significance is informed by
what you have
come to know and value from living in a particular time and place. But the
texts you read
were all written in the past, sometimes in a radically different time and
place. To read
critically, you need to contextualize, to recognize the differences between
your
contemporary values and attitudes and those represented in the text.
3. QUESTIONING TO UNDERSTAND AND REMEMBER:
ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CONTENT.
Hopefully students in your classes will ask you questions about the content of
their readings,
or at least you will quiz them on what they are supposed to be reading. These
questions
should be designed to help students understand a reading and respond to it more
fully, and
often this technique works when the questions are relevant and appropriately
phrased.
When students need to understand and use new information though it is most
beneficial if
you encourage them to write the questions that they are asking themselves as
they read the
text for the first time.
4. REFLECTING ON CHALLENGES TO YOUR BELIEFS AND
VALUES: EXAMINING YOUR PERSONAL RESPONSES
The reading that you do for this class might challenge your attitudes, your
unconsciously
held beliefs, or your positions on current issues. 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?
5. OUTLINING AND SUMMARIZING: IDENTIFYING THE
MAIN IDEAS AND RESTATING THEM IN YOUR OWN
WORDS
Outlining and summarizing are especially helpful strategies for understanding the
content
and structure of a reading selection. Whereas outlining reveals the basic structure
of the
text, summarizing synopsizes a selection's main argument in brief. Outlining may be
part of
the annotating process, or it may be done separately. The key to both outlining and
summarizing is being able to distinguish between the main ideas and the supporting
ieas
and examples. The main ideas form the backbone, the strand that holds the various
parts and pieces of the text together. Outlining the main ideas helps you to
discover this structure.
When you make an outline, don't use the text's exact words.
6. EVALUATING AN ARGUMENT: TESTING THE LOGIC OF A
TEXT AS WELL AS ITS CREDIBILITY AND EMOTIONAL IMPACT
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 to recognize every assertion as an argument
that must be carefully evaluated. 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 (these are not the same thing). At the
most basic level, in order for an argument to be acceptable, the support must be
appropriate to the claim and the statements must be consistent with one another.
7. COMPARING AND CONTRASTING RELATED READINGS:
EXPLORING LIKENESSES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TEXTS
TO UNDERSTAND THEM BETTER.
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
dialectic helps increase
understanding of why an author approached a particular issue or
question in the way he or
she did.
In Loving Memory of Mr. & Ms. Nobelyn G. Roquite &
Francis Jeremie A. Roquite

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CRITICAL READING

• Just as having more than one conversation with another

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