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  • Critical reading is a crucial part of writing strong academic essays. Actually, active reading

  • and writing are very similar. In both situations, you learn by actively interacting with a text.

  • When you critically read, you are never a passive participant, but an active builder

  • of meaning. Enhancing your natural tendency to be critical and curious will make any text

  • more real and useful to you in college.

  • Before you even read a single paragraph of your article, it is good to get out a pen,

  • highlighter, and to print out my Double Entry Log found in our learning module. The log

  • is divided up into 6 sections...you will remember these 6 elements from the lecture on the Rhetorical

  • Situation. Actually, analyzing the rhetorical situation is in many ways the same thing as

  • critical reading. Another wise thing to do before you actually read the essay is to look

  • at the title. Make predictions about what you think the article will discuss and connecting

  • to prior knowledge will help your critical analysis become more effective.

  • There are 2 parts to our critical reading. The first part is where you gather unbiased

  • evidence from the article. In your essay, you will use this unbiased evidence to construct

  • your summary, which will consist of your intro paragraph and body paragraph #1. Mark the

  • thesis and main points of your selected article. Identify important ideas. It's important to

  • read the article lightly the first time, making fewer marks. Then when you read it again,

  • you can layer in deeper identification of the author's ideas.

  • Identify the overall purpose of the author. Who is the author's audience? Identify any

  • parts that are confusing so you can re-read it later. In short, when you are reading the

  • article the first few times, read it as if you were an anthropologist...you want to simply

  • uncover the author's ideas.

  • It is very important to remove any bias from your writing when you are conducting the summary

  • portion of the essay. Do not input any of your own opinions and bias. Students often

  • do this by accident by having a dreary or serious tone when summarizing a point with

  • which they disagree. Stay neutral here in this portion of the reading and note taking.

  • Once you have identified the author's main ideas from the article, its time to begin

  • questioning and analyzing the text. Analyzing a text means that you will break it apart

  • into pieces to find out how all the pieces relate to each other. As you read the author's

  • claims, do you feel like he is reaching you as a reader? You will want to identify why

  • he is or isn't convincing you. Consider any assumptions the author is making.

  • For example, "[I]f a college recruiter argues that the school is superior to most others

  • because its ratio of students to teachers is low, the unstated assumptions are (1) that

  • students there will get more attention, and (2) that more attention results in a better

  • education." Identifying assumptions like these help you identify weak points in the article.

  • In your essay, any time you give a critical response, you will want to support your response

  • with evidence. A nice pattern you can sometimes use is to 1) refer to the author by reminding

  • your reader of something you previously summarized from the intro or body paragraph one, 2) then

  • you should critically respond to it, and then 3) provide evidence from the article that

  • supports your critical response. It's nice to pick an element from our rhetorical

  • situation and use it to look at it your article through different glasses. For example, you

  • can look at the Thesis & Main Ideas. For the summary portion of the essay you would simply

  • identify main points and key passages. Then you can flip into your critical glasses to

  • identify assumptions, contradictions, and omitted arguments.

  • You can also look at the elements of language and style. In the summary portion of your

  • essay, you will simply identify the author's tone as casual, ironic preachy, humorous,

  • academic, and more. If the author uses a metaphor or image that you find significant, it is

  • good to share those with your reader in your essay.

  • But, when you flip into your critical glasses, you will interpret weather or not the tone

  • supported or distracted the author's message. Finally, one last example I'll give is of

  • the author's organization and evidence. When wearing your summary glasses, you can simply

  • identify how the article was organized and what kind of evidence is being used to prove

  • points. But then when you flip into your critical

  • glasses, you analyze if the organization was effective, if the evidence was too emotionally

  • charged or if it was bogged down by too much data and detail. You can even explain any

  • brief personal experiences that help prove your assertions towards the author.

  • Overall, as you read, you are decoding a message from the author. As a writer, you have the

  • responsibility to identify the author's message and actively question, reason with, and illuminate

  • the text. I hope this video helps you as you begin to

  • read and critically analyze your selected essay.

Critical reading is a crucial part of writing strong academic essays. Actually, active reading

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