Reading Critically

Approaching Reading as an Act of Composing

(annotating)
• Critical (active) reading of the text is different from just memorization
of the text.
• Look for key ideas, claims, or connections with other texts. What is
the author trying to say? How are they trying to say it?
• Write in margins, underline, circle, etc. Helps clarification and also
drills point of essay into head.
 Analyzing a Text Rhetorically
1) Identify the situation (why the author is motivated to write)
2) Identify writer’s purpose (what is the author trying to
accomplish/want the reader to take away?)
3) Identify writer’s claims (assertions that authors justify/support with
evidence and reason. The thesis is the controlling idea of the paper).
4) Identify writer’s audience.
 Steps to Analyzing an Argument
1) Identify type of claim being made
• Fact, value, or policy?
2) Analyze reasons used to support this claim
(recent/relevant/reliable/accurate?) Old Spice Commercial (2010)
3) Identify counterarguments
They say vs. I say
Activity