Critical Reading Strategies

1. Critical Reading Strategies Moving from analysis to interpretation Adapted from D. Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen, Writing Analytically (2006)

2. Notice and Focus

3. Benefits • Forces you to consider the data more carefully before responding • Prevents you from generalizing too soon, before you truly understand the data • Will give you better ideas to write about • Will inactivate your like/dislike switch

4. Rules: • 1. Annotate • Slow down; resist judgment • Ask yourself these questions • What do I notice? • What do I find most interesting? • What do I find most strange? • What do I find most revealing?

5. Rules: • List all of the details you notice • Ask: What top three details or specific features of the subject are most interesting (strange, revealing, significant) • Rank the details • Say why the top three details are interesting (strange, revealing, significant)

6. Strands and Binaries

7. Benefits • Attains the big picture • Prevents overgeneralizing • Can see what is the most important idea(s) • Triggers ideas • Digs into language to unearth the thinking behind a text’s organizing similarities and contrasts

8. Rules: • List and number exact repetitions of substantive (meaning carrying) words (vs. a, the, is etc.) • List repetitions of synonyms, e.g., polite, courteous, decorous (strands) • List words that seem to be in opposition, e.g., kindly/unfriendly (binaries)

9. Rules: • Choose one repetition, strand, or binary as most important, interesting, etc. and explain why. • Look for exceptions (anomalies) to the patterns you have discerned; they usually can be part of a strand or opposition.

10. Disclaimer • Sometimes a struggle among points of view demonstrates that a number of binaries appear to be the primary organizing principle • No one “right” answer exists