Powerful strategies, tools, and techniques for educators teaching students critical reading skills in the humanities.
Every educator understands the importance of teaching students how to read critically. Even the best teachers, however, find it challenging to translate their own learned critical reading practices into explicit strategies for their students. Critical Reading Across the Curriculum: Humanities, Volume 1 presents exceptional insight into what educators require to facilitate critical and creative thinking skills.
Written by scholar-educators from across the humanities, each of the thirteen essays in this volume describes strategies educators have successfully executed to develop critical reading skills in students studying the humanities. These include ways to help students:
- focus
- actively re-read and reflect, to re-think, and re-consider
- understand the close relationship between reading and writing
- become cognizant of the critical importance of context in critical reading and of making contextual connections
- learn to ask the right questions in critical reading and reasoning
- appreciate reading as dialogue, debate, and engaged conversation
In addition, teachers will find an abundance of innovative exercises and activities encouraging students to practice their critical reading skills. These can easily be adapted for and applied across many disciplines and course curricula in the humanities.
The lifelong benefits of strong critical reading skills are undeniable. Students with properly developed critical reading skills are confident learners with an enriched understanding of the world around them. They advance academically and are prepared for college success. This book arms educators (librarians, high school teachers, university lecturers, and beyond) with the tools to teach a most paramount lesson.
Table of Contents:
Notes on contributors ix
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
Part I Frameworks and Approaches 1
1 Reading Responsively, Reading Responsibly: An Approach to Critical Reading 3
Robert DiYanni
Being Critical 4
Responsible Reading, Responsive Reading 6
A Framework for Critical Reading 7
Demonstration – E. B. White on the Moonwalk 12
Application – Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address 17
Reflective Reading – Reading and Living 21
References 23
2 Reciprocal Acts: Reading and Writing 24
Pat C. Hoy ii
AStoryofNecessity 24
Acts of Conception 25
Working from Images 26
Remembering Spontaneity 31
Getting More Systematic 34
Merging What and How 41
Writing as Representation, Writing as Composition 47
References 48
3 A Shared Horizon: Critical Reading and Digital Natives 49
Anton Borst
Critically Reading the Digital Native 51
Responding to the Digital Native 53
A Shared Horizon 55
Devices, Screens, and Digital Native Reading Practices 56
Conclusion 59
References 60
Part II Critical Reading in the Disciplines 63
4 Critical Reading and Thinking: Rhetoric and Reality 65
Lawrence Scanlon
Rhetorical Challenges 67
Ways of Reading 70
Logos, Ethos, Pathos 70
Demonstration: Annotating a Speech 71
Everything’s an Argument: No It’s Not! Yes It Is! 74
A Suite of Exercises 77
Conclusion 81
Notes 82
References 82
5 The Community of Literature: Teaching Critical Reading and Creative Reflection 85
Adrian Barlow
Ways of Reading 85
Textual Conversations – Critical Dialogue 88
Re-reading and Creative Reflection 91
Demonstration – Hardy’s “In a Museum” 93
Broadening Context 95
Application – Middlemarch, Chapter XXIX 96
Contemporary Contexts 99
Notes 102
References 102
6 Approaching Intellectual Emancipation: Critical Reading in Art, Art History, and Wikipedia 104
Amy K. Hamlin
Reconsidering Wikipedia 104
Reading Art: The Visual Analysis 109
Reading Art History: The Annotated Bibliography 113
Reading Wikipedia: The Comparative Analysis 119
Chain Reactions 121
Notes 121
References 122
7 Teaching Critical Reading of Historical Texts 123
Michael Hogan
Basic Matters 123
Challenges for Teachers 124
Three Kinds of Reading 125
Selecting Historical Documents for Analysis 126
Marking and Preparing Historical Documents 128
Reading Abraham Lincoln’s House Resolutions December 22, 1847 131
Reading Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Speech Opposing the Vietnam War 136
Conclusion 138
Some Useful Sources for Critical Reading in History 139
References 140
8 Philosophy and the Practice of Questioning 141
Matt Statler
Questioning Toward Truth 141
How Do We Come to Know Anything at All? 142
Toward Practical Wisdom 149
So What? The Effects of Reading Philosophy Critically 155
Notes 156
References 157
9 Engaging Religious Texts 158
Thomas Petriano
“Pay Attention!” 158
Reading as an Embodied and Dialogic Act 159
Insights from the Religions 161
The Three Worlds of Religious Texts 166
Practices for Engaging Religious and Theological Texts 168
Conclusion 171
References 172
10 Gender Studies as a Model for Critical Reading 174
Pamela Burger
Gender Studies and Critical Reading 175
Deconstructing Gender 177
Documentary Project 178
Staging the Documentary Project 180
Aesthetic Distance and Ironic Images of Gender 183
Melanie Pullen’s High Fashion Crime Scenes and Cindy Sherman’s Centerfolds, 1981185
References 189
11 Reading and Teaching Films 190
William V. Costanzo
Personal Response 191
Analyzing Story 192
Basic Film Terms 194
Formal Analysis 197
Genre Analysis 199
Cultural Analysis 201
Historical Analysis 203
Representation in Film 205
Film Theory 205
Exercises 206
References 209
12 Thinking Through Drama 210
Louis Scheeder
Drama and Argument 210
The Classical Studio 214
The Structure of Verse 215
Following the Verse 217
Exercises 220
Conclusion 221
References 222
13 Approaches to Reading and Teaching Pop Songs 223
Thomas M. Kitts
Popular Music and Its Contexts 223
Reading a Pop Song 224
Writing about Music 228
Critical Reading: Theodor Adorno’s Criticism of Pop Music 231
Socially Conscious Music 232
Additional Writing Assignments 235
Conclusion 236
References 237
Index 239
