ENG635

Critical Reading

Final Paper

S.M. Zihadul Haque

2225019655
 ABSTRACT

Critical reading is an analytical reading behavior that enables the reader to go beyond the
written meaning and analyze its use. It is considered one of the highest level skill for English
department students. This skill is highly beneficial to evaluate fiction and non-fictional texts. In
this approach readers are expected to identify the credibility of the text by evaluating its
strengths and weaknesses. Critical reading is the key to higher success in academic work and for
TESOL professionals. This paper focuses on the outcome of teaching critical reading that will
help a student learn this skill to read critically. The student who participated in this study is
currently enrolled in the Master's program at North South University. She completed her
bachelor's degree from North South University. She is now 25 years old. She started to learn and
use the English language from her kindergarten school. She found the language English confined
within the textbook use from primary to higher level of education. North South University is
situated at Dhaka, Bangladesh. North South university practices the English language as the
primary medium of instruction.
 INTRODUCTION
This paper with all intents and purposes takes the approach to address the challenges
faced by a reading teacher. Critical reading enables the reader with insightful awareness beyond
the understanding of the argument presented by the text. According to Solikhah, reading a text is
not just about gaining word for word meaning, rather it is a much bigger job to know and relate
with prior knowledge (2018). There were three classes conducted by a university graduate
student. The most important objective in learning the language in the context of Bangladesh is to
acquire comprehension and writing skills. This also includes learning vocabularies and their
proper use. This kind of institutional implementation supplements language proficiency. Critical
reading unlocks the potential to use those resources properly. It brings linguistic sophistication
and rhetoric value in creating a text as well. The classes, therefore, aim to ignite the participant’s
ability to use her knowledge and perform better in the academic task as well.

The first class

The lesson plan for the first class was focused on introducing the student with critical
reading. The definition of reading was used to highlight the difference in extra procedures it
takes to be a critical reader. Furthermore, the class design also included parameters for critical
reading which have been discussed afterwards. There was a long discussion about semantic
sophistication. The student was silently listening to it. Then in compliance with the discussion,
the student asserted that, “then this kind of intensity in deep thinking is what separates a critical
reader from an ordinary reader. At this point, the discussion appeared to hit the climax and one
thing led to other topics. After discussing the importance for critical thinking, the class continued
with a reading task for the student.

The student took a small coffee break. She was sitting near but remained silent. She
returned after a few minutes and asked to continue for the remaining class. The article "Born
again in another language" by Costica Bradatan was on the agenda for the first class. The
document was available online. Therefore, she used her phone to read the whole text. At the
beginning she asked if it was required to read aloud. The instructions were given to read loudly.
Then she started reading. While reading she asked to look for the meaning for an unknown word,
but then continued to read, skipping that specific word. It took around 30 minutes for the student
to finish reading the text.

She made a comment on the chronological order of the text. The order was working well
with the text. She also said that the writer exhibited independent characteristics in voicing the
phenomenon caused from a language shift. She added that any undergraduate reader or higher
would find the text easy to read. Although she said that, the text was not that appealing. She
identified the written text as both written from writers and readers point of view. It was described
in a way that depicted how the struggle would feel when a reader and a writer goes through the
language shift.

The total time taken for this class was around one hour and twenty minutes. The student
was greeted for giving her valuable time to participate in this study. Then the time for the next
class was discussed. A suitable date in accordance with her free time was fixed. This led to the
end of the first out of three classes.

The second class

The second class was focused on the rubrics or the lens that can be used to read critically.
the student gave feedback on her understanding of the critical reading in the beginning of the
class. The student explained that being critical requires in depth analysis of a particular text.
Additionally, a reader sometimes needs to read more than once just to get the general
understanding. Therefore, repeatedly reading is important in order to read critically. She shared
her struggling experience, for example, difficulties to pronounce correctly and reading multiple
times to understand the word's meaning. The student appears to be understanding the technical
aspects of being critical in reading. The class continued with the explanation on different types of
rubrics. Then the rubrics such as communication, craft, creativity, concreteness, courage,
attention grabbing title, engaging paragraph, lots of detail, storyline, source and clarity were
discussed in detail.

There was an exchange of many opinions during the class. Though she understood all the
rubrics, she expressed opposing thoughts on the “storyline” rubric. She explained that the plot
twist is an important quality for a story to elevate the mood of the reader and the quality of the
story. The rubric "storyline" by Halen Sword suggests to refrain from adding new irrelevant
information and keeping the story aligned which curbs the chance to add any plot twist. This is
the issue that the student brought against the rubric "Storyline". She gave examples about the
effect of having and not having plot twists to support her arguments. She argued about how the
plot twists make any story interesting.

Then there was a discussion for shifts in written language style and genre varied texts.
She then understood the importance of "Storyline" in the reading. She then made a second
opposing opinion to another rubric called "Source". She explained that some authors use made
up or pseudo names that sometimes create massive influence among the readers. Although it is
from an anonymous writer, the reader cannot deny the quality of the creation by the writer. This
type of writing is often seen to cause serious commotion and results in making followers. This
was made possible to gather such massive attention because of the provocative writing style by
that anonymous writer.

The second part of the lecture took more than an hour to finish. Then she started reading
the article "My two lives" by Jhumpa Lahri. She read out aloud the whole text. In the middle she
paused to say that the writer sounds very insecure and frustrated. She told to picture the writer's
condition and compared it with the situation faced by the pidgin and creole. She said that she
understood the struggle that the writer bears. She explained more that the writer cannot share her
problems to anyone. For the reason that the writer had two dimensional problems and the only
bridge between two dimensions was the writer herself. Therefore, no one would understand her
struggle. Then she used the rubrics to critically analyze different aspects of the text. She finished
her opinion by saying that the writing didn’t gave any detail of the problems she faced.
Additionally, the writer only gave a brief outlook of her two lives.
 The third class
In the third class, it started with a few questions for the student. There were discussions
about reading habits. She shared about how she grew the habit to read because of the pandemic
situation. The discussion led to a few questions about reading techniques and how the student
reads. She replied that she follows a rule of reading five times. She also described the importance
of this method. Additionally, she complained how difficult it is to understand by reading any text
only once. Then she gave a chronological order that she follows when she reads.

There was another question for her about what she thinks about the relation between
critical thinking and critical reading. She replied in the affirmative. She further added that certain
texts may contain literary devices. It demands the presence of critical thinking. The literary
devices wouldn't mean anything to a general reader as they don’t think critically.

The last class was planned to discuss some demerits from reading. The student implied
that there can be no blowback from reading. Then she said that reading too much while sitting
still may harm the eye and the backbone. The three demerits from reading were then discussed.
The demerits were research paralysis, the anxiety of influence, losing one’s virginity.

During the discussion of losing one virginity, she expressed that this point is not
necessarily true as everyone at one point of life is bound to break intellectual innocence. She
added an example to support her claim. She complained about globalization being the most
influential cause.

The discussion then continued with a task for the student to read. The reading for the last
class was a poem "forest of snow" by Robert frost. The student was very interested in reading the
poem. She gave different interpretations of the poem. Then she read the poem again and came up
with another interpretation. Later, she asked for guidance on how she could read a poem
critically.

Additionally, there was a discussion on the text from the first class. This time she gave an
analytical explanation by pointing out the qualities of each paragraph. She employed the rubrics
to make her analysis.
 FINDINGS
The finding from the three classes revealed that through proper guidance and facility can
increase reading comprehension skill. The Findings also point toward how the teacher’s
capability is important for an effective learning outcome. This type of teaching exercises will
also come in aid for the TESOL graduates. They will be able to gather experience on dealing
with students by ensuring well planned lesson delivery. This paper will also help inform the
teachers about the struggle in teaching reading in order to complete their own tasks. Furthermore,
the findings will bring fresh ideas on how to develop teaching facilities in the context of
Bangladesh.

These three classes have revealed another important aspect that raises questions about the
stability of the student in her comprehension skill. The student exhibited a peculiar interest in the
state of the writer’s mind. She was adamant on believing that the writer whatever they wrote is
generated from the pent up identity a person keeps shackled behind social norms. This finding
enables the assumption about the possession of a superior imaginative ability. But this might also
be the result from being a literature student as most of the academics contain psychoanalytic
tasks.

The participant successfully completed three classes. The classes also revealed gaps in
teaching skill. For example, there were few questions which should have been discussed with
adequate information. Nonetheless, the positive thing found was how the student’s cooperative
behavior helped deliver the planned lessons for the class.

During these classes there was discussion about critical reading and its different
functional applications. The student was quick to understand the topic. This is indicative of her
reading prowess. It also indicates that she is proficient in reading in the English language. She
followed the instruction and was able to complete the given task in time which indicates the
quality of her comprehension skill. The most important fact about all three classes was that
cooperation from both teacher and learner made the learning outcome more effective.

Then she also handled the reading task in accordance with what she learned from the
classes. She was capable of analyzing the text pieces using the rubrics that she learned. This
reveals the positive outcome of the classes. In terms of reading and understanding the lectures, to
be able to put it to use was good but she mentioned that it was hard for her to extract the meaning
of the text. This was also evident when reading the text pieces. She could read them fast but
couldn't understand at that pace. She pauses several times and then continues again. She
sometimes reads a sentence repeatedly. In a question about her pause and continue, she revealed
that she uses a five time reading technique. It is what she has been doing since childhood. This
behavior can be interpreted as the effort to relate the written text with her prior knowledge. It is
the activity of deep thinking which is essential during critical reading.

She explained that it is effective to understand any text. During the class, she often
pointed out that she is stressed and tensed over some other matters. The way she read all the text
indicates that she read just to be done with the task. It can be deduced that the student sat to read
with the intent only to complete the task. She didn't express any appreciation that she enjoyed
reading the text pieces. This demonstrates an unappealing behavior but she might as well be
occupied with something to do after the class. Though she exhibited strong awareness in
understanding the anxiety inside the words of the writer. She could interpret the mental state of
the writer. She displayed this behavior in all other reading tasks. She kept on talking about the
writer’s struggle. She was oddly focused on finding the state of the writer. The mental state of
the writer seems to attract her more than what is written in the text. Furthermore, she focuses on
what it took for the writer to get into this point.

She found the poem from the final class very interesting. She expressed that she enjoys
reading poetry. It might also indicate that she prefers fantasy genre over any other genres.
Therefore, it can be assumed that she reads fantasy genre only for the purpose of pleasure,
enjoyment and other genres just to keep herself informed. This kind of preference might also
justify her interest with the writer’s mind as imagination and fantasy sprouts from it.

The classes were taken as it was planned. However, a task to clarify a certain issue
rendered a bland explanation. It could have been explained in a better way about reading a poem
critically. In my experience, we have to deduce the meaning from most of the poems based on
imagination. On condition that this deduction or interpretation is different from critical reading,
then there is a gap in preparation prior to initiating the lessons. Additionally, there could have
been a better explanation about the importance of the “storyline” rubric. This was another issue
that might have occurred due to the lack of preparation.

The findings from the three classes conducted on only one student is not enough to
generalize the challenges faced by a reading teacher. In spite of that, the classes have revealed
few challenges in taking the class. At the beginning it was hard to structure the agenda for the
class. This is also often seen among different teachers. They are so ill equipped that the students
cannot properly understand the lessons. It is observed that the students also don’t understand the
delivery of the lectures by a few teachers. This issue might be the reason for lack of institutional
facility to teach the teachers in Bangladesh.

A common practice is to depend on conventional methods in teaching reading. Due to

lack of training facilities, the teachers cannot acquire any creative solutions. Sometimes, elderly
teachers never want to accept anything new and stand by the traditional methods. This is a
common practice seen in the primary level institutions of Bangladesh.

The teaching development facility is time consuming. Therefore, some take unethical
methods and skip the training. They take on unattractive and out of date methods to teach the
students. This may have a long term effect on a student. It also affects the mood and interest in
learning for the students.

The teaching methods are crafted to address a certain issue in general. However, the
method should be crafted depending on the nature and variation of the issues faced by different
students. A particular method prepared to tackle issues in general won’t be enough.

Another common but a very challenging obstacle faced by the reading teacher is to be
overburdened with multiple tasks. The teacher should take time to teach reading. That time is
often exhausted by other daily chores. This hampers the teaching outcome. Therefore, it’s a
terrible loss of the teacher’s time and energy if his efforts are wasted because of external
pressures.

It can be assumed that a large number of students will make it hard to teach reading. It is
a common scenario in the class of Bangladesh. This huge size of the class renders the lessons
ineffective by the teachers. The teacher cannot focus on the whole class. Therefore, very
selective few can learn from the classes.

In order to tackle the challenges, a few steps mentioned below can enhance the teaching
facility for the students.

The teachers can first identify what are the challenges in teaching to read critically. It is
the biggest challenge to understand what the challenges are in a particular field. The teacher can
treat the issues with a suitable teaching method. This will increase the chances of effective
teaching outcomes.

Next the teacher student communication is another important factor often overlooked. It
requires contribution and cooperation from both sides. The student must share their difficulties
so that the teacher can act accordingly to the students' needs. It is the responsibility of the teacher
to guide the student. Clear communication will be beneficial to remove any teaching gap. The
bond between teacher and student will bring out the best version of the student.

The government should address to develop and employ policies for teacher training
facilities. It will help the teacher to learn and develop their skill. Learning depends on the
delivery method of a teacher. Therefore, the training facility will develop language proficiency
and problem solving skills.

Then a teacher can sometime organize a one day tour. It will help the students break out
from any stressful and monotonous situation. It will also help the teacher understand the needs of
each student. This will culminate in an effective teaching outcome.
 Conclusion

Critical reading enables the reader to analyze a text for its credibility. It is one of the
fundamental skills to acquire knowledge. Teaching reading is an important task. Teachers should
work on their skill to develop teaching methods. The teachers with adequate training will still
face difficulties in teaching reading but they will be able to deal with it more efficiently. The
three class session is small but an effective method. The classes provided educational lessons on
practical teaching environments. It makes a reader aware about what to accept and use reasoning
to reject any ideas at the same time. Teaching to read critically broadens that awareness. It
requires various comprehension methods to interpret a piece of text. The teaching sessions
helped the student to read critically. This is evident from the discussion and feedback recorded
from the classes with the student. This paper also highlights improved comprehension awareness
on the progression of the class sessions. The number of classes deemed effective following the
number of student. This study was limited to only one student. Therefore, a large number of
audience members might have led to new insights on challenges faced by teachers teaching to
read.
 References

Egberibine Yekedu Nanah, S. S. (2018). CHALLENGES OF TEACHING READING SKILLS

AND PUPILS’ READING EFFECTIVENESS IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS.
Equatorial Journal of Education and Curriculum Studies, 15-22.
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Solikhah, I. (2018). INSUFFICIENT PREPARATION OF TEACHING READING: WHAT
SHOULD TEACHER CHALLENGE? INDONESIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE
TEACHING AND LINGUISTICS, 71-84.