Critical Literacy
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Critical Reading
What is Close and Critical Reading?
Close and critical reading is the ability to comprehend information, analyze how it is presented, determine the purpose and perspective of the author, establish what it means, and apply it to your life.
- Dr. Elaine Weber
The following four questions are used to move students from comprehending the information to the final application to their own lives. These four steps or modes of analysis are reflected in four types of reading and discussion:
Q #1 What does the text say? – restatement
Q #2 How does the text say it? – description
Q #3 What does the text mean? – interpretation
Q #4 What does the text mean to me? – application
You can distinguish each mode of analysis by the subject matter of the discussion:
The Tools of Critical Reading: analysis and inference
What to look for (analysis) - involves recognizing those aspects of a discussion that control the meaning
How to think about what you find (inference) - involves the processes of inference, the interpretation of data from within the text.
The above material is based upon or directly from the work of Dan Kurland.
Analysis
The breaking down of informational materials into their component parts, examining (and trying to understand the organizational structure of) such information to develop divergent conclusions by identifying motives or causes, making inferences, and/or finding evidence to support generalizations.
analyzes; breaks down; categorizes; compares; contrasts; correlates; diagrams; differentiates; discriminates; distinguishes; focuses; illustrates; infers; limits; outlines; points out; prioritizes; recognizes; separates; subdivides.
Source: Major Categories in the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
(Bloom 1956)
Synthesis
Experts emphasize the importance of synthesis to students’ success in today’s world and in the world of the future. Howard Gardner in Five Minds for the Future describes the Synthesizing Mind as the ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines into a coherent whole. Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind describes synthesis as Symphony, the ability to link apparently unconnected elements to create something new. Synthesis is measured in the 10th grade units by providing students with information from two or more selections and leaving students to make the connection between the ideas in the selections and the theme or a concept from the assessment and then to reflect on those connections to identify insights or new knowledge. A rubric is provided to guide students’ thinking and teachers’ scoring.
Close and Critical Reading Descriptions from Early CCR Module (2008)
What is Close Reading?
To read well requires one to develop one’s thinking about reading and, as a result, to learn how to engage in the process of what we call close reading. Students not only need to learn how to determine whether a text is worth reading, but also how to take ownership of a text’s important ideas (when it contains them). This requires the active use of intellectual skills. It requires command of the theory of close reading as well as guided practice based on that theory
What is Critical Reading?
To the critical reader, any single text provides but one portrayal of the facts, one individual’s “take” on the subject matter. Critical readers thus recognize not only what a text says, but also how that text portrays the subject matter. They recognize the various ways in which each and every text is the unique creation of a unique author.
Critical reading begins with reading the text to determine what it says. The students need to demonstrate their ability to read and restate or summarize the text. Next, the students need to analyze the text for how the author has crafted the text, including genre, perspective and purpose. Students determine the meaning of the text based on the summary and analysis of the text leading to the big ideas and overall theme. The final questions asks the students to connect the big ideas and theme of the text to their own lives.
A non-critical reader might read a history book to learn the facts of the situation or to discover an accepted interpretation of those events. A critical reader might read the same work to appreciate how a particular perspective on the events and a particular selection of facts can lead to particular understanding.
The above material is based upon or directly from the work of Dan Kurland at
http://www.criticalreading.com/
What is Close and Critical Reading?
Close and critical reading is the ability to comprehend information, analyze how it is presented, determine the purpose and perspective of the author, establish what it means, and apply it to your life.
- Dr. Elaine Weber
The following four questions are used to move students from comprehending the information to the final application to their own lives. These four steps or modes of analysis are reflected in four types of reading and discussion:
Q #1 What does the text say? – restatement
Q #2 How does the text say it? – description
Q #3 What does the text mean? – interpretation
Q #4 What does the text mean to me? – application
You can distinguish each mode of analysis by the subject matter of the discussion:
- What a text says – restatement – talks about the same topic as the original (summary or restatement)
- What a text does – description – discusses aspects of the presentation of the text (choices of content, language, and structure)
- What a text means – interpretation — analyzes the text and asserts a meaning for the text as a whole (putting the message in a larger context and determine theme)
- So what does it mean to me – application of the text to my life (finding the relevance of the bigger meaning/theme to my life)
The Tools of Critical Reading: analysis and inference
What to look for (analysis) - involves recognizing those aspects of a discussion that control the meaning
How to think about what you find (inference) - involves the processes of inference, the interpretation of data from within the text.
The above material is based upon or directly from the work of Dan Kurland.
Analysis
The breaking down of informational materials into their component parts, examining (and trying to understand the organizational structure of) such information to develop divergent conclusions by identifying motives or causes, making inferences, and/or finding evidence to support generalizations.
analyzes; breaks down; categorizes; compares; contrasts; correlates; diagrams; differentiates; discriminates; distinguishes; focuses; illustrates; infers; limits; outlines; points out; prioritizes; recognizes; separates; subdivides.
Source: Major Categories in the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
(Bloom 1956)
Synthesis
Experts emphasize the importance of synthesis to students’ success in today’s world and in the world of the future. Howard Gardner in Five Minds for the Future describes the Synthesizing Mind as the ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines into a coherent whole. Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind describes synthesis as Symphony, the ability to link apparently unconnected elements to create something new. Synthesis is measured in the 10th grade units by providing students with information from two or more selections and leaving students to make the connection between the ideas in the selections and the theme or a concept from the assessment and then to reflect on those connections to identify insights or new knowledge. A rubric is provided to guide students’ thinking and teachers’ scoring.
Close and Critical Reading Descriptions from Early CCR Module (2008)
What is Close Reading?
To read well requires one to develop one’s thinking about reading and, as a result, to learn how to engage in the process of what we call close reading. Students not only need to learn how to determine whether a text is worth reading, but also how to take ownership of a text’s important ideas (when it contains them). This requires the active use of intellectual skills. It requires command of the theory of close reading as well as guided practice based on that theory
What is Critical Reading?
To the critical reader, any single text provides but one portrayal of the facts, one individual’s “take” on the subject matter. Critical readers thus recognize not only what a text says, but also how that text portrays the subject matter. They recognize the various ways in which each and every text is the unique creation of a unique author.
Critical reading begins with reading the text to determine what it says. The students need to demonstrate their ability to read and restate or summarize the text. Next, the students need to analyze the text for how the author has crafted the text, including genre, perspective and purpose. Students determine the meaning of the text based on the summary and analysis of the text leading to the big ideas and overall theme. The final questions asks the students to connect the big ideas and theme of the text to their own lives.
A non-critical reader might read a history book to learn the facts of the situation or to discover an accepted interpretation of those events. A critical reader might read the same work to appreciate how a particular perspective on the events and a particular selection of facts can lead to particular understanding.
The above material is based upon or directly from the work of Dan Kurland at
http://www.criticalreading.com/