Ten Key Concepts

Critical reading involves digging deeper into the author’s creation, and being able to understand it on different levels. Throughout the book, we are given tips on how to solely concentrate on reading without getting distracted. With writing and reading together, you can judge the essay you are reading more accurately. The sample essay by Nancy Mairs, shows different examples on

Critical thinking is a complex concept that can be mastered over time. When thinking of a main character in a book, you often wonder to yourself

This weeks reading included They Say I Say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein and From Critical Thinking to Argument by Sylvan Barnet, Hugo Bedau, and John O’Hara. In They Say I Say, Graff and Birkenstein talk about the importance of being able to look at writings and be able to not only find the thesis/ argument that the author is making but also be able to figure out “The view or views that motivate the thesis - the ‘they say’” (Graff and Birkenstein 155). In From Critical Thinking to Argument Barnet, Bedau, and O’Hara talk about how to think critically. This includes being able to see both sides of an argument. A good way to do this is by clustering, which is where one thinks about possible counterarguments/ responses to their claim. We also read about how when reading a paper, we should preview the paper by looking at the author, publisher, title, context, and the thesis. We should also annotate, highlight, and

Introduction: Ways of Reading can be difficult to understand at times, but if you break it down it becomes easier to understand. Some of the quotes written by David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky can be used to look at the greater picture and do not just apply to reading and writing. Three quotes really stuck out to me while I was reading the introduction of this book. It was not just because they were great advice on reading and writing, but because they can also be applied to everyday life or certain situations in life. There are lessons to be learned in this introduction such as challenging others and students, understanding that there are different interpretations of things, and finding the meaning as you go along.

Under the principle of integrity, I must be straightforward and honest. To exercise those, I should tell to Company B that one of my previous and current clients is a bidder for the business.

Critical thinking primarily includes the skill of analysing argument, making inferences using inductive or deductive reasoning, judging or evaluating text, making decision or perception on a writing and even trying to solve issues. It requires cognitive skills and dispositions – which can be considered to be ones habits or openness to various view- points. Critical thinking pertains to the reading and writing process and it involves general and domain specific aspects of critical thinking. In my opinion, critical thinking is a cross- disciplinary skill vital for college and employment. Prior to this course, I had a vague idea of what critical thinking means and how it is done. However, now I have developed a different perspective

Teaching students to think while reading--critical reading--should be central to any discussion of thinking skills. This is in part because the reading of textbooks has such an important role in the content fields. Critical reading is defined as learning to assess, draw inferences and arrive at conclusions based on the evidence.

Edgar Allan Poe was an American editor, writer, and a literary critic. He is most popular for his short stories as well as his poetry. He is idolized as a central figure of Romanticism in American Literature. He is also the first well-known writer to attempt making writing their sole source of income. He was born January 19th 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father tragically abandoned their family in 1810 and his mother died the next year. Poe was then adopted by Frances and John Allan. He then went on to attend the University of Virginia but was unable to finish do to financial struggle. He spent the next several years working for periodicals as well as literary journals. He moved around a lot during his years until he ended up in Baltimore where he married his 13 year old cousin Virginia Clemm. For years he had been wanting to create his own journal called The Penn but passed away before it could be released. Edgar Allan Poe passed away on October 7th 1849. It is unknown as to how Poe died. Poe’s stories have immense popularity and re studied all over the world (Poe Museum). Poe’s works “The Black Cat” and ‘The Tell Tale Heart” have major characters that believe insane things are happening to them which causes them to murder people and animals.

The ability to critically review a book is an essential skill that every academician should possess. Academicians should have the capacity to identify the central theme of an author in a book. They should also understand the way the author has presented the theme in the book. Without these capabilities, reading books are only waste of time because it is not beneficial reading a book if one does not understand it.

Kübler-Ross came up with idea that people pass through different stages after they find out that they are dying, but this idea has been debunked. The stages include Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. According to Kübler-Ross everyone who is the progress of dying goes through these stages, but according to some research not all people go through these stages or if they do they go through them in reverse (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio, & Beyerstein, 2009). Kübler-Ross’s stages are so popular because they give people a sense of predictability over their deaths (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio, & Beyerstein, 2009).

Critical pedagogy, influenced by Paulo Freire and Michael Apple, sees students become participants in their learning, where topics are relatable and relevant to their lives. Critical literacy refers to the use of text and other communication to challenge the rules governing the societal norms of everyday life (Luke, 2012, p.5). Asking students to interrogate a text and question the use of language, allows them to form a critical observation about what the author wants the readers to know, for example, when studying Australian First Contact, allowing students to draw conclusions about the treatment of Indigenous people from a text which glosses over the details, ensures students look at the topic from multiple angles and apply their sociocultural knowledge to the discussion. The introduction of multimodal tools into literacy teaching, acknowledges that a

Although I acknowledge that the more we read the more we become a better critical reader, my critical reading skills have not fully developed and this factor has affected my college career a lot.

The math teacher was babbling on about how this specific formula worked and halfway through her example I noticed that she had made a mistake. I hesitated a hundred times before raising my hand. It felt almost wrong because usually no one spoke up unless they had to go to the bathroom or get a drink which we all know that was just an excuse so we didn’t have to hear the teacher talk about something we weren’t interested in at that moment. According to Freire, we were taught within the banking system of education to accept our ignorance as justifying the teacher’s existence (319). In other words, students were “trained” in a way to keep

Each week, I was given reading assignments in which I had to prepare for the following class. This allowed for the exposure to different styles, genres and form of writings. I had to critically analyze and evaluate numerous passages and make logical sense of the text. This in turn taught me how to cite evidence from text, have a good sense of judgment thus maintaining objectivity, recognize different arguments and form my own opinions. Along with this accompanied summary writing and paraphrasing activities. This was a real challenge for me as I struggled immensely week after week until I believed I had grasped how to do it properly. These critical reading activities has enhanced my critical writing skills in allowing me to learn how to write for different audiences, expand my vocabulary and improve my diction.

According to (Critical literacy practices, 2011) “critical reading” is a type of literacy practice that is learning practice in which students analyze and critique language and power relationships within written texts. Many college freshmen are not prepared for critical reading, yet a lot of higher education organizations and levels do not require individual critical reading courses. Even though critical reading is an often-cited neutral topic in some different colleges structured reading courses. In many different colleges, at times, there is little to no research that exists that may also describe how composition instructors teach critical reading strategies. No matter the subject or the age of the reader. An overall reading goal for critical readers includes reading an article to comprehend information based on what was stated within the text. While readers read to gain understanding from the text, the readers also use additional information at times such as factual ideas, prior knowledge, and also context clues to understand the difficult text. There are many ways to become a “critical reader” which includes different types of reading strategies.