Handout: Critical Reading Towards Critical Writing



Handout: Critical Reading

Critical writing depends on critical reading and critical reading depends on critical thinking. Critical reading does not just mean critiquing – it is “reading in the service of writing” and “rhetorical reading.” This means figuring out what is being said in a text and then figuring out how to apply it and what its connections are (to yourself, to other texts or authors, and to other ideas). This may lead to critique, which is great if critique is done through critical reading and thinking. Reading just to critique someone or something most often involves “shutting down” the text and one’s understanding of it – it’s much easier to label something “Not Useful” or “Wrong” then it is to spend time figuring out what it’s saying and how you can use it for yourself (in writing or in living). Most college writing will involve reflection on texts and the thinking and research that has already been done on your subject. In order to write your analysis of these texts and to construct your own arguments, you need to do critical readings of these sources and then use them critically to make your own arguments. The judgments, interpretations and connections you make of and between texts are the first steps in formulating your own ideas.

Critical Reading: What is it?

Reading critically takes into consideration several approaches to a text at one time – all of which we have engaged in this class. To read critically is to figure out what a text is about, what it is doing, how it is doing it and then what connections it has to other texts and ideas. This includes annotating, analysis of rhetoric, close reading, discussion of stakes and intertextual exploration. Only after this kind of analysis can you finally make judgments about the argument – you must describe before you evaluate (for example, you can’t say you liked a movie unless you’ve seen it and you can’t analyze the acting unless you know something about acting.)

Critical reading is a highly reflective skill requiring you to “stand back” and get some distance from the text you are reading (even a close reading, getting as close to the text as possible, is a “standing back” as you separate the passage from the rest of the text). You might have to read a text through once to get a basic grasp of content before you launch into an intensive critical reading. You sometimes may need to do research to locate a text within a discipline, a theoretical framework, a specific historical moment or cultural connotation (all of which we’ve focused on in this class). The key to critical reading is this:

• don't read looking only for information

• do read looking for ways of thinking about the subject matter

Critical reading is also a worldview and the foundation of cultural studies. It’s more than a way to think about class readings – it’s also a way to “read” other medias (like film, visual arts), ideas, people, sites and all discourse. You should question everything critically including your own culture, society, ideology, beliefs, and hegemonies. But don’t question things just for the sake of questioning – ask questions to figure out what is really being said and then question the reasons it is begin said. For instance, many things are done because of “tradition.” Tradition is a roadblock to critical inquiry; it means “stop asking questions” and “don’t bother yourself with understanding, we’ll understand it for you.” To live a non-critical thinking life is to be a puppet that complacently accepts without question the pulling of its strings by others.

Three “Steps” to Critical Reading

There are (at least) three distinct steps to begin a Critical Reading. In some ways, all academic writing stems from some exploration within these three steps.

1. The first step is to describe the argument like the work done in a Reading Journal or an Annotated Bibliography. When you are reading, highlighting, or taking notes, begin your analysis by extracting and compiling lists of evidence, facts and examples. We’ve practiced this a lot in class. This is when you ask the critical questions we’ve asked all quarter:

• What is the information I can get out of this text?

• What is the main claim?

• What is the evidence? How is the evidence used?

• Why was this text written?

• What is it trying to accomplish?

2. The second step is a Rhetorical Analysis or Close Reading. The “next level” of reading (and of writing) is analysis the way it is argued. This is when you note exactly how the argument is structured. Ask the questions we’ve also discussed and practiced in your own rhetorical analysis and in our close readings:

• How does this text work?

• How is it argued?

• How is the evidence (the facts, examples, etc.) interpreted by the author to further his/her argument?

• How does the text reach its conclusions?

• What are the assumptions underlying the text?

• How is specific language being used? Why did the author chose the words s/he did?

3. The third step is deep Intertextual Analysis in the broadest sense. The first two are textual based analyses. This means that any of the questions are of the text; any answers can be found in the text. To come to a real understanding of a text and to contextualize an argument, author or text, it is absolutely necessary to make connections to the text – to analyze its intertextuality. This is not simply noting what texts are mentioned in the reading (although this is the first step) but figuring out how the author is using those texts and investigating the other texts to connect more deeply. Intertextual analysis also includes noticing connections outside the text. It involves locating the text in a discipline. It involves locating the conversations the text is having with other authors. It involves historicizing the text to see if specific historical conditions are influencing the rhetoric or the content of the text (this is very important). Another way to explore intertextuality is to make your own connections between texts – this is the way original thoughts are created. This involves putting texts that may not seem compatible together in conversation and then explaining why you’ve done this. There are many, many implications of intertextuality. This step involves asking questions like:

• What, why and how does the text use other textual references in its argument?

• What connections are there to other texts, writers, theories?

• Is this text located within a specific theoretical, philosophical, historical, methodological, etc. vein?

• When was this written? What are the implications of its historical specificity?

• What socio-cultural background does the text have?

• What kinds of connections can be formed to other texts?

How Do I Read for Ways of Thinking?

These points can be used to think through both critical essays (like Omi and Winant’s “Racial Formation” or literary texts.

1. First determine the central claims or purpose of the text (its major claim). A critical reading attempts to assess how these central claims are developed or argued. You’ve accomplished this in your E-Post Responses, Annotated Bibliographies, and Peer Reviews.

2. Examine the evidence (the supporting facts, examples, etc) the text employs. Supporting evidence is indispensable to an argument. Having worked through Steps 1-3, you are now in a position to grasp how the evidence is used to develop the argument and its controlling claims and concepts. Steps 1-3 allow you to see evidence in its context. Consider the kinds of evidence that are used. What counts as evidence in this argument? Is the evidence statistical? literary? historical? etc. From what sources are the evidence taken? Are these sources primary or secondary? You’ve practiced this in your Annotated Bibliographies, Peer Reviews, and as you used texts yourself in S1 and S2.

3. Examine how the text is organized. Analyze the way it is being argued (its rhetorical moves). How has the author analyzed (broken down) the material? What form does the literary text take? How does it use language? What assumptions are necessary to organize the argument in this particular way? Different disciplines (i.e. history, sociology, philosophy, biology) will have different ways of arguing. You’ve practiced this in your Iser Annotated Bibliography, Morrison Racial Formations, Hwang Close Reading and your readings of Shakur’s poetry.

4. Begin to make some judgments about context. What audience is the text written for? In what historical context is it written? All these matters of context can contribute to your assessment of what is going on in a text. You’ve practiced this in your Historicizing Shakur and S2.

5. Critical reading may involve evaluation. Your reading of a text is already critical if it accounts for and makes a series of judgments about how a text is argued. However, some essays may also require you to assess the strengths and weaknesses of an argument. If the argument is strong, why? Could it be better or differently supported? Are there gaps, leaps, or inconsistencies in the argument? Is the method of analysis problematic? Could the evidence be interpreted differently? Are the conclusions warranted by the evidence presented? What are the unargued assumptions? Are they problematic? What might an opposing argument be? You’ve practiced this in your E-post Responses and all of your readings of the literary texts in the class.

6. Distinguish the kinds of reasoning the text employs and how it connects to other texts – its intertextuality. What concepts are defined and used? Does the text appeal to a certain theory or theories or theorist? Is any specific methodology laid out? Is there is an appeal to a particular concept, theory, or method? How is that concept, theory, or method then used to organize and interpret the data? You’ve accomplished this in your Anzaldúa Lahiri Intertextual Reading, Morrison Racial Formations, and both S1 and S2.

Some Practical Tips

• Critical reading occurs after some preliminary processes of reading. Begin by skimming research materials, especially introductions and conclusions, in order to strategically choose where to focus your critical efforts.

• When highlighting a text or taking notes from it, teach yourself to highlight argument: those places in a text where an author explains his/her analytical moves, the concepts s/he uses, how s/he uses them, how s/he arrives at conclusions. Don't let yourself foreground and isolate facts and examples only, no matter how interesting they may be. First, look for the large patterns that give purpose, order, and meaning to those examples. The opening sentences of paragraphs can be important to this task.

• When you quote directly from a source, use the quotation critically. This means that you should not substitute the quotation for your own articulation of a point. Rather, introduce the quotation by laying out the judgments you are making about it and the reasons why you are using it. Often a quotation is followed by some further analysis. A good rule to use is introduce, quote, restate and analyze.

• When you begin to think about how you might use a portion of a text in the argument you are forging in your own paper, try to remain aware of how this portion fits into the whole argument from which it is taken. Paying attention to context is a fundamental critical move. You should do a close reading of every quote you use in your own papers (this is, in fact, how you complete the “quote sandwich.”)

• Critical reading skills are also critical listening skills. During lectures, listen not only for information but also for ways of thinking. Your instructor will often explicate and model ways of thinking appropriate to a discipline.

• Research the intertextual connections of an essay. See what theories, writers and disciplines the text highlights or uses as its method. A quick online search is a good tool for getting general information. Reading primary texts used by an author provides a much deeper understanding of the reasons for the connections.

• Talk to your peers. Discussing texts outside class in a reading group gives you the opportunity to discuss difficult texts outside the anxiety of a classroom.

• Finally, think about your readings. Spending time thinking about what and how texts say things – a valuable result of writing Reading Journals and performing Close Readings of specific passages – provides the deeper understanding crucial to critical reading and writing. Critical thinking will allow you to see beyond, around, and under the words of the text (as well as beyond, around and under ideological and hegemonic structures of the world).

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