INRL-106 & Week 3

The Art of Close Reading – Part 2

The art of engaging a text while reading

To read closely, students must get beyond impressionist reading…Instead, engage in a self-constructed dialog with the author of a text…

It requires one to formulate questions and seek answers to those questions while reading. It requires connecting new ideas to already learned ideas, correcting mistaken ideas when necessary.

In other words, close reading requires specific intellectual work on the part of the reader.

1) Avoiding Impressionistic Reading and Writing

The impressionistic mind follows associations, wandering from paragraph to paragraph, drawing no clear distinction between its own thinking and the author’s thinking. Being fragmented, it fragments what it reads.

Being uncritical, it judges an author’s view to be correct only if that view concurs with its own beliefs… Being rigid, it does not learn from what it reads.

Uncritically intermixed with prejudices, biases, myths, and stereotypes. It lacks insight into how minds create meaning and how reflective minds monitor and evaluate as they read.

Impressionist Claude Monet's Water Lilies

2) Reading Reflectively• The reflective mind seeks meaning, monitors what

is being said…draws a clear distinction between the thinking of an author and its own thinking.

• Being purposeful, adjusts reading to specific goals.• Being integrated, it interrelates ideas in the text

with ideas it already commands. • Being critical, it assesses what it reads for clarity,

accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, and fairness.

• Being open to new ways of thinking, it values new ideas and learns from what it reads.

3) Thinking About Reading While Reading

• Moving back and forth between the cognitive (thinking) and the meta-cognitive (thinking about thinking).

• Checking the track of thinking. • To monitor and assess his or her own thinking while

processing the thinking of others.• Try to accurately understand the author’s viewpoint

while reading and attempt to enter that viewpoint, to be open to it as much as possible.

• Taking command of the ideas that the reader think are worthwhile rather than dismissing all the ideas simply.

4)Engaging a Text-1

Interacts with the author’s thinking. In this interaction, the reader’s mind reconstructs the author’s thinking.

It does this through a process of inner dialogue with the sentences of the text, assessing its intelligibility and questioning in a disciplined way:

4)Engaging a Text : Assessing each sentence in a disciplined way:

• Can I summarize the meaning of this text in my own words?

• Can I give examples from my own experience of what the text is saying?

• Can I generate metaphors and diagrams to illustrate what the text is saying?

• What is clear to me and what do I need clarified? • Can I connect the core ideas in this text to other

core ideas I understand?

5)Reading Minds

In reading the work of others, you enter their minds. In coming to terms with the mind of another, you can come to better discover your own mind — both its strengths and its weaknesses.You are able to change your thinking when the logic of what you read is an improvement on what you think. Then, you realize that you may be wrong in some of your beliefs.

IDENTIFYING BIG PICTURE IN THE TEXT

To read well, students must be able to identify

the big picture within a text, to determine the

key ideas within the text early on, and to see

the skeleton that connects all the ideas within

the text.

1) Structural reading

• A form of close reading applied to the overall structure of an extended text (usually a book).

• Focus on what we can learn about the book from its title, preface, introduction, and table of contents.

• Structural reading has two main uses: 1) To determine whether we want to spend the time to read it carefully. 2) Providing an overview to use as skeleton in reading the whole text.

• Knowledge of a whole helps us understand all of its parts. Knowledge of a part helps us better understand the whole (which contains the parts).

To read structurally, ask these questions:

• What does the title tell me about this book?

• What is the main idea in the book?

• What are the parts of the whole, and how

does the book deal with those parts?

• In the light of my structural reading, what

questions would I pursue during close

reading?

How to Read a Sentence• Finding key sentences means finding the sentences that are the

driving force within a book.• An important part of reading with discipline is to connect

sentences to the broader context within which they are located, to see how they fit within the written piece.

• For every sentence you read, you might ask:

1) How does this [key]sentence connect with the other sentences in the text?

2) How does this sentence relate to the organizing idea of this text as a whole? • Good readers read sentences in relationship to other sentences,

connecting each sentence with the purpose of the written piece.

How to Read a Paragraph-1 • Finding key paragraphs consists of finding the ideas or

questions that are the driving force within the book. All paragraphs within a written piece should connect to every other paragraph so that we can see logical connections between ideas.

• All ideas should form a system of meanings. As you move from paragraph to paragraph, ask:

What is the most important idea in this paragraph?

How do the ideas in this paragraph relate to the ideas in previous paragraphs?

How are the important ideas in the text connected?

How to Read a Paragraph-2

• Look for paragraphs that focus on significant ideas or questions.

• Connect those ideas, when possible, to situations and experiences that are meaningful in your life.

• To actively connect ideas to life situations, ask: How can I relate this idea to something I already understand?

Is there an important idea here that I can use in my thinking?

Have I ever experienced a situation that sheds light on this idea?

How to Read a Newspaper

• Every society and culture has a unique worldview. This colors what they see and how they see it.

• Within any country, the news media highlight what is positive about the country; its enemies’ news media highlight what is negative about it.

• As a critical reader of the news, you must make adjustments for both of these biases.

How to Read an Editorial/Analysis/Commentary/Opinion -1 • Rely on only one side of a controversial issue.

Not to consider all sides or to do what a writer of a research paper is expected to do.

• Most people read editorials in the following way: If writers are defending what they believe, they praise the editorial. If writers are criticizing what they believe, they criticize the editorial.

• The fact is that there are many ways to look at the world that they never examine or appreciate.

How to Read an Editorial/Analysis/Commentary/Opinion -2

• Critical readers recognize what they would like to believe while at the same time realizing that they may be prejudiced by that very desire.

• It is in this spirit of open-mindedness that we should learn to read editorials — especially the ones to which we are least sympathetic.

• Learn how to step outside of our own point of view and enter points of view with which we are unfamiliar.

How to Read an Editorial/Analysis/Commentary -3

• Critical readers read all editorials with equal sympathy. They read to discover and digest a wide range of points of view, especially points of view that tend to be ignored in the mainstream of the culture.

• To enhance their breadth of vision while avoiding ethnocentrism and sociocentrism, critical readers search out dissenting media sources.

Guidelines about Critical Article Review Presentations During presentation try to answer the following questions: 1) The main purpose of this editorial, article, or essay is ________________________. 2) The key question (whether stated or unstated) is __________________. 3) The most important information in this editorial, article, or essay is ____________. 4) The main conclusion(s) in this editorial, article, or essay is (are) ____________________. 5) The main idea(s) we need to understand in order to understand this editorial, article, or essay is (are) ___________________________. Here is a short explanation of what the author means by this/these concept(s): _________________________________________________________________ 6) The main assumption(s) underlying the author’s thinking is (are)________________. 7) The main implications of this line of reasoning is (are) __________.

8) The main point(s) of view presented in this editorial, article, or essay is (are): _____________________________. (What is the author focused on and from what angle?)

Week 5 - Americas :Keystone pipeline Debate

• http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/U-S-needs-the-Keystone-pipeline-2252675.php

• http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-07/keystone-xl-energy-independence-isnt-a-good-reason#p1

Week 6 - Europe : EU FP Futures & Ukraine

http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=54421

http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=54743

Week 8- Africa

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/12/must-stand-people-south-sudan-2013123055431166329.html

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/02/libya-crisis-choice-change-201422083010117613.html

Week 9- Middle East

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/gulf-iran-new-realities-new-st-2014131144646495245.html

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/03/turkey-iraq-turkish-model-foreign-policy-kurds-krg-davutoglu.html

Week 10- Asia

http://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/is-the-nine-dash-line-in-the-south-china-sea-legal/

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/01/afghanistan-stability-pipe-dream-201411292124651506.html

Week 11- Russia/FSU

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/why-there-will-be-war-in-ukraine/495740.html

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/putins-crimean-stunt.aspx?pageID=238&nID=63252&NewsCatID=468

Week 12- Global Commons

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/opinion/sunday/rushing-for-the-arctics-riches.html

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/19/2013-climate-change-review-global-warming