AE 111

Critical Skills in English

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 Goals of the course
AE 111

• Learning how to respond to a text

• Expressing ideas

• E ective written communication

• E ective oral communication

• Identifying central ideas

• Summarizing and paraphrasing

• Analysis and interpretation

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AE 111
Responding to a Text - Steps

• As you read, highlight interesting points

• While you read make sure you understand the main point (the central idea) the
author is trying to communicate

• In order to understand the main idea, rst identify the purpose of the text:
Why was it written? What is the topic? What is the context?

• Familiarize yourself with elements of writing: type of narrative, narration, tone

(how the author feels about something), context.
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 Steps for Active Reading
AE 111

- First Reading:
•What is the subject/story/se ng?
•What are the main ideas/themes?
•What is the cultural/social/historical context in which the piece was wri en?
•How would you diagnose the problem?
•- Annota on:
•Iden fy key phrases (those you think have some kind of signi cance)
•Look up unfamiliar words
•Paraphrase
•Parse complex sentences
•Mark up areas that require deeper understanding
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 Steps for Active Reading

AE 111

- Explore:
•The mo ves (Do you think there is a central purpose?)
•The “tone” of the text (What type of emo ve mood does the text convey? Angry? Pedan c? Melancholic?
Sarcas c? Ironic? Indi erent?)
•The types of discourse (What sentences/passages do: Descrip on? Comparison? Exposi on? Narra on?
Persuasion? Argumenta on?)

- Second Reading
•Look for connec ons between the ideas
•Iden fy the contradic ons, tensions that the text addresses
•Construct a frame of meaning by using these connec ons, and respond to the ways of thinking exempli ed in
the texts.
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Exercises
Samples for Analysis

1. “A Poppy Blooms” by Katsushika Hokusai

I write, erase, rewrit

Erase again, and the
A poppy blooms

What is the theme

What is the writer’s message

2. “No Man is an Island” by John Donn

No man is an island
Entire of itself
Every man is a piece of the continent
A part of the main

What is the theme?

What does the poet want to say with “No man is an island”?
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Exercises
Samples for Analysis
• Describe the tones of these opening lines:

• “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.” (From Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë)

• “I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with.” (From
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë)

• “If you really want to hear about it, the rst thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what
my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that
David Copper eld kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the rst place
that stu bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told
anything pretty personal about them.” (From The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger)

• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it
was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of
Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing
before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.” (From A Tale of Two
Cities by Charles Dickens)
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 What is effective Communication?
E ective Oral and Written Communication

• In order for communication to be successful, a message needs to be

delivered.

• Constructing meaning: discourse (The Fall of Constantinople), grammatical

structure changes meaning, tone and enunciation, adjectives and adverbs we
use.
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Effective Written Communication
Things to Consider

• Now, let’s focus speci cally on language as a means of communication.

• Stay on topic.

• Know your target audience.

• Use the right tone.

• Keep it simple. (“Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation”)

• Avoid using fragments and run-on sentences.

• Be speci c about your argument/message/response

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 Critical Response
Things to consider

• Response to a concept? An idea? An argument? A story?

• When responding to a text, you need to simultaneously summarize, paraphrase and discuss it.

• In order to do this, identify the central idea(s), paraphrase speci c passages or sentences and then respond to them.

• Paraphrase this passage: “Research shows that when people are together, say for lunch or a cup of co ee, even the presence of a phone on the table
(even a phone turned o ) does two things. First, it changes what people talk about — it keeps conversation light because the phone is a reminder that at
any point, we might be interrupted, and we don’t want to be interrupted when we’re talking about something important to us. Second, conversation with
phones on the table or even phones on the periphery of our vision, interferes with empathic connection. Two-person conversations that take place with a
phone on the table leave each person feeling less of a sense of connection and commitment to the other.” (From “Empathy Gap” by Sherry Turkle)

• When people get together/meet for lunch

• When there is a phone on the table, even a phone switched o , it does two things.

• The phone reminds us that at any point… we could get interrupted, a phone call can interrupt our conversation.

• .. when there is an issue that is important to us / when there is an important issue that we are discussing / when we are discussing an important issue

• It a ects our empathic connection negatively / It prevents us from empathizing with others.

• … less sense of connection and we lose our bond with each other / we don’t feel committed to each other / we don’t have a strong commitment to the
conversation.
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