17.1: Critical Reading--Reading Assignment

Critical Reading & Annotation

Critical Reading is active and engaged reading. This means fully understanding the text and asking questions of the text. As such, annotation is a key component of critical reading.

Critical Reading is also one of the most important skills you can have in any college class. Regardless of discipline or level of the course you are taking, your critical reading skills will help you understand new information, question and critique assumptions and premises, and enable you to innovate and imagine.

Setting and set-up

• Choose the quietest space you have access to.
• Turn off any media in which there is talking. Your brain cannot completely process both spoken words and written words.
• If you need some background noise, use a white noise machine, or ambient sound, or lyrical-less music.
• Get rid of any distractions. Turn off notifications, close out of browsers etc.
• Get comfortable, but not too comfortable: choose a comfortable upright position in which to sit. Laying down is not recommended (that’s a recipe for an undesired nap).

• Pre-read: Quickly skim over the entire text paying attention to titles, headings and subheadings, highlighted sections, and images
• Assess how much you need to read and how difficult/ time consuming a careful reading will be.
• Make a reading plan based on this assessment. Know that ultimately you will fully and completely read the text three times. See Three Real Reads.
• Be sure to plan breaks. Breaks should be often and include getting up, stretching, moving your body, and drinking or eating.

Three Real Reads

Three Real Reads method is done in addition to the pre-reading noted above.

Note: You may want to cut corners here—don’t do it! Reading a text once or even twice is not enough to understand to write a critical, accurate essay!

1. Read the text straight through without stopping to look words up or take notes. Read with the awareness that you will read it twice more, once to annotate, and another time after you receive the essay prompt. While you should not skim for this read, you can read faster than normal as long as you are comprehending the text.
2. Read the text again, and Annotate, according the directions in this text. Ensure you look up any unknown words and write their definitions. This reading will take the longest time—it’s a slow read in which you will stop many times to look up words and take notes.
3. Read the text a third time, and as you read, consider the precise directions in the essay prompt for which are expected to use the text.

Annotation

Annotation is the practice of adding notes—comments and questions alike—to a text in addition to highlining, underlining or otherwise marking the text.

Annotation is a powerful tool that not only helps you return to a text to write about it later, but actually helps you comprehend and engage with the text as you read, making you understand the text better.

Critical Reading Annotations should be a mixture of in-text markings and marginal comments and should include the following:

• Indications of
  • major plot points/main ideas
  • supporting points
  • important names, places, events, or things

via highlighting or underlining directly in the text

• Definitions of words or phrases you are unfamiliar with (write in the margins)
• Questions of clarity, e.g. “What does it mean to ‘amplify minority voices in the college classroom’ ”? (write in the margins)
• Questions of rhetoric, e.g. “Why does the author use so much emotional language in the introduction?” (write in the margins)

Note:

• If you have a printed text, or you print it out, have multiple colors of pend read and a highlighter.
• If you are working with text on screen, copy and paste the text into a word document where you can add notes and highlight digitally.
• If you are reading a pdf and don’t have the needed software to annotate such documents, print out the document. If your instructor doesn’t provide a text that can be annotated virtually, and that’s what you need, speak to them about it.

Here’s an example of an annotated text.

There are many ways to annotate, but unless—or until—you have a routine that works best for you, try the method described here.

After completing the setting and set-up tips above, do the following:

Critical Reading Annotation Tips

• Annotate by reading with a pen in hand or your hands on the keyboard/mouse!

Annotation is a key part of critical reading: you aren’t reading critically if you aren’t annotating. The two most basic moves of annotation are underlining and writing in the margins

• • Underline key points, especially those found in topic sentences
  • Highlight key words and terms by drawing a box around them
  • Although many students like to use highlighters, highlighting a text is not sufficient; if you do use a highlighter, you should also write in the margins
  • Whatever you do, create a colored-coded key to indicate what various colors/highlights mean.
• Write key ideas/main points in the margins

• Read with a dictionary ready to go. Have Google open or the dictionary website of your choice.
• As you read, ask questions
  • Don’t just read to understand what the writer is saying (although that’s important); read to figure out how, why, and the reason things happen since these are the deeper analytic questions
  • Stop often and ask questions: What is the writer’s main point? Why did they choose that example? Why are they highlighting those statistics? What is the author leaving out, or missing? What does the title mean? Why does the writer begin the text this way?
  • Also ask how, why, and so what
  • Write key questions in the margins
• Consider who the writer's intended audience, purpose, the publisher, and the genre
• Evaluate the text’s arguments
  • First, identify all of the text’s arguments. Then, evaluate them: what assumptions or inferences are behind their argument? How credible do you find their evidence? How persuasive do you find their evidence? If applicable, break down complicated arguments into parts, examine those parts, and then evaluate how significant each part.
• Identify connections
  • What similarities do you see between the text and other texts that make similar arguments? Or texts that deal with similar topics? What’s different? What are your thoughts about the similarities or differences?