More on Close Reading

1. More on Close Reading Which Makes this Part Two

2. Understand your purpose • Understand as much as is possible about the author’s purpose • See ideas in the text as being interconnected • Look for and do what you can to understand systems of meaning Close Reading Review

3. Deciphering and decoding with vague understanding • Author is correct only if you agree, which stifles learning • Following associations, wandering from one unit of the text to another, be it a paragraph, page, quatrain, line or what have you • Absorbing bias, stereotype and myth uncritically Avoid Impressionistic Reading

4. Seek meaning • Monitor what is being said from unit-of-text to unit-of-text • Adjust your reading to specific goals • Interrelate ideas in the text with ideas you already command • Assess for clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth & breadth, logic, significance, and fairness • Value new ideas and learn from what is read Read Reflectively

5. Move back and forth between thinking to thinking about thinking (cognitive & metacognitive) • Look forward (predict and anticipate) and loop back to check • Exercise of reading and thinking • If reading is difficult, slow down and maybe paraphrase what you read • If unsympathetic to the author’s view, hold judgment in check, attempt to enter author’s viewpoint rather than rejecting it Think about Reading while Reading

6. Summarize in your own words • Provide examples from your experience to illustrate what the text says • Generate metaphors and diagrams to illustrate what the text says • Connect core ideas in the text to core ideas you already understand Engage the Text

7. Coming to terms with the mind of the author, which is what you do when reading, helps you come to terms with your own mind, for good or ill. • Understand that we think with purpose within a point of view based on assumptions leading to implications and consequences • We use concepts, ideas and theories to interpret data, facts and experiences to answer questions, solve problems and resolve issues. • Reading is intellectual work! Reading Minds