SMARTHINKING Writer's Handbook

Chapter 3, Lesson 7

Inquiry:  Critical Reading

Objective

In this lesson, you will learn what “critical reading” is, why it is important in college and in other areas of your life, and how to go about reading critically.

What is critical reading, and why should I do it?

Just as we write for various purposes, we also read for various purposes:  entertainment, information, understanding, and so on.  Different purposes require different reading tactics.  When we read for fun, we simply let the story or book take us into its world and we enjoy it for the time we are there.  However, when we read for information or understanding, we don’t kick back and go into another world; we filter the information through our minds and make judgments about its truthfulness or whether it means anything to us.  Reading for enjoyment is important, but so is reading critically. 

Reading critically means you take the step from simply “taking in” what you read to “talking back” to what you read and, ultimately through your own writing, “taking a stand” on the issues you read about and find important, to influence others, who will read you critically as well.  Critical reading is the first step in taking full part in our society’s conversations.  It is also an important step toward writing more effectively – if you ask good questions of others’ writing, you can also ask good questions of your own, and improve your effectiveness by doing so.

Critical reading refers to the process of making judgments and filtering material in effective, useful ways.  Critical reading means you are aware that what you are reading is the result of one person’s (or group’s) view of the subject at hand, and that person or group made choices in what they said and how they said it. 

Critical reading also means going through the steps necessary to make a judgment:  first, you must understand what the writers is saying; second, you must ask good questions of the text, recognizing what the writer is doing and saying; and third, you must decide for yourself what you think about the text.  This last step you don’t have to do entirely by yourself; it’s often better to talk with others about the text and get multiple perspectives on what is said before you make a “final” judgment.  Just as a writer writes from certain motivations and experiences, you read from certain motivations and experiences.  Talking with others gives us the opportunity to see the text through others’ motivations and experiences.  These steps will be described and discussed in more detail below.

Step 1:  Understand What the Writer Is Saying

To make any judgment about what someone says, you must first be sure you know what he or she is saying.  Not understanding what someone else says not only makes it impossible for you to make a good judgment about it, but also nothing can defeat your reader’s belief in what you say faster than you misinterpreting or only understanding part of what someone else says! 

You are already likely familiar with this kind of reading-for-information, since it is the kind of reading often demanded by textbooks and introductory classes in the natural and social sciences, history, and so on, and it is the kind of reading we do often everyday, in the form of following instructions, reading about news events, and so on.  We don’t ask “why” very often in these circumstances; we simply take in the information.  Critical reading leads us to asking “why” and “how” of a text, but the first step in that process is asking “who,” “what,” “when,” and “where.”

Sometimes a text is easy to understand, but sometimes you will face a more difficult text.  The critical reading process gives us a way to work through some of those more difficult texts.  The following are some strategies you can use to understand and summarize simple or more complex and difficult texts.  The next chapter in the Smarthinking Writer’s Handbook discusses effective summarizing in much greater detail, so here I will just point out the strategies that will help you understand what is said and leave specific information about summarizing for the next chapter.

1. Skim the text first.  As you skim, you can pay attention to

• the language level, so if it is going to be difficult, you can have a dictionary handy;
• the overall organization of the text (Pay special attention to headings within the text, since they indicate what is covered in each section.); and
• the introduction and conclusion of the text, since that is most often where main points are summarized.

2. Get out a pencil (I suggest a pencil because you then have the option of changing or erasing some things later if you wish) so you can mark significant statements, or point out where the writer is changing topics, or note meanings of difficult words.  You can also begin to “talk back” to the text here, noting things you agree or disagree with, or questioning ideas you are not sure you understand or you are not sure what you think about.

3. After you read the text and make your initial notes and remarks, skim it again, noticing where you had trouble understanding; paying attention to the overall organization and main points made; and making any additional notes that strike you as you skim this second time.  This is also the time to reread parts that you had a hard time understanding the first time through; sometimes we can understand something that is initially confusing once we see what else the writer has to say, since writers often re-explain some points later in their texts and since we have more of a context for the difficult parts.

There is one last technique to mention before we move on:  if you do run into a long or otherwise puzzling sentence as you read, try taking it out of its context and writing it on another page, broken into its various pieces, as I’ve shown in an example from Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience” below:

Trade and commerce, if they were not made of India rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way; and, if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions, and not partly by their intentions, they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons who put obstructions on the railroads.

            Trade and commerce,                                     

if they were not made of India rubber,

            would never bounce over the obstacles

which legislators are continually putting in their way;

            and,

            if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions,

                        and not partly by their intentions,

            they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous persons

who put obstructions on the railroads.

Sometimes the process of outlining the sentence, using punctuation to help guide you where to make breaks, clarifies it for you, and sometimes just being able to see how the various parts interlink help us understand what is being said.

Exercise 1

Reading to Understand

In the text box below, write a brief, two- to -three-sentence summary of the following passage from Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience.”  When you’re done, click “compare” to compare your summary with ours.  Yours likely won’t read exactly like ours, but you will see if you picked up on what Thoreau was saying in this difficult passage.

After all, the practical reason why, when power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest.  But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.  Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? -- in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

[Our response] Summary:  Thoreau believes that the majority rules because if its physical strength, but he also believes that each person should examine the laws made by that majority and decide for him- or herself whether those laws are right, are just.  To do otherwise is to give up our consciences and be pawns to unjust laws, “agents of injustice.”

Step 2:  Ask Good Questions

Not everything that gets into print is true.  Not everything in print presents the whole story.  As I’m sure you’ve noticed from your own experience, writing is a process loaded with choices:  what to say, what not to say, how to say it, how not to say it, to whom to say it, for what purpose.  All of these choices influence what you read, and the more aware you are of the writer’s choices, the more you will be able to decide the truthfulness and the thoroughness of the text.  You can use the process outlined above for reading to understand to read to think, as well.

Prereading – In addition to preparing yourself to understand the text during this part of the process, you can also ask some questions to help you understand the motives and possible biases of the writer or writers.

• Look for any information about the writer.  Often there will a biographical note about the writer that can give you clues as to their expertise and attitudes.  Think about when this was written – what was going on in the world?  What seemed to trigger this writer to write this text?  Think about the writer’s audience – who was he or she writing this for? 
• When you skim the introduction and conclusion, write down what looks to be the writer’s main point, and any major points that support that point.  As you read, then, you can look back at those notes and see if the writer is supporting that point well, or if he or she is leaving out some important information.
• Write down some initial thoughts you have about the topic of the text – what do you already know?  What is your initial position on the topic?  What do you need to know?

In-depth reading – In addition to marking important ideas and sentences or those that confuse you, also write comments.

• Do you agree or disagree with this point? 
• Does this point seem weak? 
• Does this point seem strong? 
• Do you need more evidence before you believe what this writer has to say? 
• Do you have a strong emotional reaction to something the writer says?

Analysis – In addition to simply noting what you think or what you observe, ask questions about why you see it as you do, or why the writer chose to write it in the way he or she did.

• What is the writer’s purpose, stated or unstated? 
• Are the writer’s sources on information identified, and are they strong sources (see “Evaluating Sources”?
• What larger political, social, or economic circumstances may have influenced the writer and the writing? 
• What experience or outlook do you bring to the reading? 
• How does that experience or outlook affect your agreement or disagreement with the author?
• Has the writer left out or not given enough attention to important issues?
• If this author’s perspective seems the most or least persuasive, decide why.

These are the steps that take you from being simply a spectator of the reading to a participant in the reading.  The step toward participating will give you more control over how what you read affects you and it allows you to “talk back” to the reading, therefore making you better able to take an active role in the conversations of your profession and society.

Exercise 2

Asking Good Questions

The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics was founded in 1994. Executive Order No. 13045 formally established it in April 1997, to foster coordination and collaboration in the collection and reporting of Federal data on children and families.

This report reflects the commitment and involvement of the members of the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. It was prepared by the Writing Subcommittee of the Reporting Committee of the Forum. This year, the committee was chaired by Katherine Heck, National Center for Health Statistics. Other committee members included Dawn Aldridge, Food and Nutrition Service; Art Hughes, National Institute on Drug Abuse; Alisa Jenny, National Center for Health Statistics; David Johnson, Bureau of Labor Statistics; Laura Lippman, National Center for Education Statistics; and Kristin Smith, Census Bureau.

And, you move to the page on child poverty and family income and read the following:

Childhood poverty has both immediate and lasting negative effects. Children in low-income families fare less well than children in more affluent families for many of the indicators presented in this report, including indicators in the areas of economic security, health, and education. Compared with children living in families above the poverty line, children living below the poverty line are more likely to have difficulty in school, to become teen parents, and, as adults, to earn less and be unemployed more frequently. The child poverty rate provides important information about the percentage of U.S. children whose current circumstances make life difficult and jeopardize their future economic well-being.

• The poverty rate for related children dropped from 19 percent in 1997 to 18 percent in 1998. The poverty rate for children has fluctuated since the early 1980s: it reached a high of 22 percent in 1993 and has since decreased to 18 percent, a rate comparable to 1980.
• Children under age 6 are more likely to be living in families with incomes below the poverty line than children ages 6 to 17. In 1998, 21 percent of children under age 6 lived in poverty, compared with 17 percent of older children.
• Children in married-couple families are much less likely to be living in poverty than children living only with their mothers. In 1998, 9 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 46 percent in female-householder families.
• This contrast by family structure is especially pronounced among certain racial and ethnic groups. For example, in 1998, 12 percent of black children in married-couple families lived in poverty, compared with 55 percent of black children in female-householder families. Twenty-three percent of Hispanic children in married-couple families lived in poverty, compared with 60 percent in female-householder families.
• Most children in poverty are white, non-Hispanic. However, the poverty rate of black or Hispanic children is much higher than the poverty rate of white, non-Hispanic children. In 1998, 10 percent of white, non-Hispanic children lived in poverty, compared with 36 percent of black children and 34 percent of Hispanic children.
• In 1998, 8 percent of all children lived in families with incomes less than half the poverty level, or $8,330 a year on average for a family of four, while 29 percent of children lived in families with incomes less than 150 percent of the poverty level, or $24,990 a year on average for a family of four.
• Children under 18 continue to represent a very large segment of the poor population (37 percent) even though they are only about 26 percent of the total population.

This excerpt is taken out of context of the entire report, so you would have more information than this to go on, but this excerpt is enough for you to practice with.

In the textbox below, write three or four questions or comments about this text, using the questions and ideas for asking good questions of texts as outlined previously.  Then click on Compare to see some questions and comments we might note; you might find matching items in the comparison, or you may not, but don’t worry about that.  Different readers often find different questions and make different comments on the same text.

[Our response] Questions and comments on the text from America's Children: 2000.  This is not an exhaustive list, but only an example of some of the questions and comments that can be made about this text.

1. Could there perhaps be bias in this text since it comes out of the same government that approved the Welfare Reform act?  Maybe they would want to put a good spin on this.  This task force was set up around the same time as the reform act.
2. I wonder what exactly were the sources for this information, and how that information was gathered.  What might be left out, or how might the statistics be read differently, depending on these factors?  I know they could not have gotten information from every family and child in the U.S.!  I wonder if they went to homeless shelters….
3. They say poverty levels “dropped” from 19 to 18 percent.  That statistic is hardly a “drop”!  One percent is not even a level of standard deviation for statistics.  I’ll have to look out for other words that seem to make a situation more than the numbers seem to indicate.
4. I would like to see other statistics from other sources to see how they compare.  Then I can tell more about how accurate a picture these numbers may paint.
5. Almost one child of every 100 lives in a family with an income of $8,330 or less a year – that’s a frightening statistic!
6. The tone is straightforward and things are written pretty carefully and mostly without a lot of evident bias.  This source is probably fairly well unbiased, but I still wouldn’t want to accept it at face value.

Summary

In this lesson, you learned what critical reading is and how it differs from other reading.  We also discussed why it is expected in college and also important in other areas of your life.  We reviewed the various steps involved in reading critically and you had an opportunity to practice reading critically.  It may seem like a slow process when you begin, but once you get some practice at doing it, you will be able to read quickly and critically.