Introducing Beginners to Critical Reading
By: Mubarak Abdessalami
CONTENTS
Introduction
I.
Meeting
Critical Reading
II. Teaching Critical Reading
III. Knowing Active Reading
IV. Practicing Critical Reading
V.
Sample
Critical Reading
VI. Conclusion
Key words
Critical Reading ,
Critical Thinking, Active Reading
Introduction
v What do you expect from this paper?
v Are you willing to reread in case you lose concentration?
v Are you prepared to read this paper entirely?
v How are you reading this paper? by skimming or scanning it?
v Are you looking for specific information?
v Are you curious about critical reading?
v How can beginners benefit from critical readers?
You aren't meant by these questions
actually. This is how normally each one of us should deal with texts. Reading
Teaching reading and comprehension is a
matter of time, age and stages, but teaching the learners how to read critically
is a matter of willingness, motivation and involvement. Besides, critical
reading is more recommended now than ever before because the sources of
information are so abundant that we hardly know which is the most interesting.
Some of them have to be read actively and critically so as to unveil their weak
evidences and wicked purposes and to sift texts for not being fooled, screwed
or disillusioned. Some others are also to be read critically so as to get the
gist of them and obtain new valid knowledge.
In this paper,
I will restrict myself to the benefits beginner learners can get from critical
reading in their studies. I will try to simplify the significance of critical
reading in connection to critical thinking. In another step, I'll move to talk
about why we should imperatively teach critical reading especially in this
technological era when the students are bombarded by messages from everywhere
even via their mobile phones. They must know how to deal with any of the
messages they receive especially those sent for commercial purposes or
propaganda. Meanwhile, I won't miss talking about the importance of active
reading as the students are used to being receptive and passive consumers of
data. I'll practically show how this could be feasible in a classroom setting
first and shortly afterwards it becomes a habit in their interactions with the
world around them.
I intend to
widen the novice teachers’ scopes about the purpose of teaching reading
nowadays. A decade ago, this was just not so imposing, but today, technology
has changed our life tremendously. We need to know how to deal with unexpected
reading experiences. Technological devices have made youngsters encounter
various unidentified pieces of written material. Reading
I. Meeting Critical Reading
Please, help me
welcome Critical reading! Critical reading means dealing with texts consciously
by adopting a sceptical approach while reflecting and pondering on the
information and ideas in that text. In other words, it is thinking deeply about the arguments
and statements you read and questioning their validity or rationality. The
students simply need to analyse and evaluate what they read with a critical
thinking eye.
Critical reading is a level of
understanding of a text that allows the learners to evaluate the writer’s
attitudes, ideas, arguments and above all purpose. It is an aware reading
process through which lots of actions are taken at the same time. Any learner,
nowadays, has to be a critical thinker to solve problems and make good
decisions. Critical reading is part of critical thinking for it improves the
reader’s capacities to understand any given text in terms of content,
arguments, purpose and the writer’s intention from delivering it.
Unlike the
University students, who have to use this for their academic studies, high
school students needn’t skim, scan, or anticipate. All that they need is a deep
understanding of the text to critique it with an unbiased intention. They also
need to use their schemata to question the content, the diction, the structures
and so on. Critical reading practice allows learners to avoid being controlled
by the ideas of others: that’s why critical reading is, like critical thinking,
a means to take control of your conscious thought processes by thinking beyond
the obvious.
II. Teaching critical reading
Most students
think that the tests on reading comprehension exist only but in the classroom;
they are not aware that they encounter several forms of reading tests daily.
Anything they read -even signs and commercials in the street- are challenging reading
tests that have to be approached critically. However, the word “critical” is a
much unprejudiced term that has nothing to do with fetching for mistakes and
faults in what is read.
The students are used to reading a text
and answering the comprehension questions besides the “True or False” task basing their
answers on what the text says. This may be the case in early primary
school years; however, in secondary levels, we need to train the students to go
beyond the written text and try to read between the lines. They must base their
answers on what the text means. This is a question of reading with the aim of reaching deep understanding of
any given text by analysing and evaluating its content thoroughly. Non-critical
readers take content as facts and a source of new knowledge, whereas critical
readers see the text as an individual view of one facet of facts that is subject
to analysis and questioning. That’s why they no longer need to know what the
text says, but rather what the text wants to say.
Teachers have to encourage
students to read critically so that they do no longer focus on understanding
what the text says only, but also to try to understand what message is beneath
the “subtle” way any given writer might have used to present the topic. This
requires some skills like analysis and inferences from evidence within the
text. Consequently, the
text would then be understood as a presentation, among other viewpoints, seen
from a specific angle. Any topic that a writer talks about could be found
elsewhere with different perspectives, content,
language, and structure. Nothing is to be taken for granted and to be memorized
unthinkingly.
All the same, restatement
is not enough, the learners need to go a step further and try to interpret the
text. Interpretation, here, means, analysing the given text and asserting a
general meaning for the text as a whole. That’s to say, to discover the writer’s
purpose, and the implicit means he uses to persuade the readers of his or her
point of view. The students should learn how to unveil subliminal messages and
immediately react positively or negatively depending, of course, on the amount
of strong evidence provided by the author of the text. There is possibility
that some tricky writings use a series of statements that are backed up by “fake”,
misleading or unsound evidence. This training will surely allow the students to
recognize bias, drives and fallacies deployed to transmit the hidden purpose
from delivering the text.
Teaching critical reading
is not only a school business, it is a living matter. The students will sooner
or later come across lots of texts which contain different evasive statements and
styles of persuasion like in booklets, propaganda, tempting advertisements,
visual images on television or internet and the manipulations of language
during conversations in real life situation. For all these reasons, the
learners have to be disposed,
motivated, involved and very concerned to have
the chance of reading properly.
III. Knowing
Active reading
Besides this, Fallacies
are the most dangerous tools used in a text. It is not easy for the learners to
spot them unless they are exposed to lots of practice. These fallacies include vague and unsupported
statements like when some subtle statements start with “the majority of people
agree …, most villagers approve…, most citizens do this, why don’t you? Scientists
revealed …, the major party of the community protest against … and so on”.
These bandwagon fallacies are to be spotted right away because they are not
supportable evidence and that they have no basis. More than that, they exert a bad
effect on youngsters. The students have to be trained on asking texts for
providing strong and valid evidence to back up the points they are presenting. On
the other hand, some authors deliberately rely on the passive voice to mystify
a great deal of evidence. Fresh readers cannot escape from the trap of
accepting the implication blindly as a lot of misleading arguments are put in
such ambiguous but compelling styles. They just cannot recognize that the arguments are loose
because the doers are vague characters or unidentified agents.
IV. Practicing Critical Reading
If
we continue testing reading in the same old ways, the learners will never meet
their needs and expectations to face the challenges of the 21st century.
What we generally do is just checking if they understand what the text says, whereas
the learners actually need to know what the text means. So, teaching critical
reading should start now, but in a mild way so as not to burden them with hard
obligations. We have to provide the students with the necessary tools and
practice to be able to rationally judge the texts that they might encounter in
their real future life. They need self confidence and an unshakable belief in
their potential to logically and fairly weigh and assess arguments in any text.
If we all believed that
school is a building which has four walls with the future inside, we should take
it as such literally. The kids of today are the adults of tomorrow, and the
problems of tomorrow are completely unknown to us. Reading
The following sample reading test is not supposed to destabilize the
learners or scare them; that’s why it is designed in the conventional testing mode
they are familiar with. All the rubrics of conventional reading tests are there
except for the little changes occurring here and there unnoticed to introduce
them gradually to accepting doing the test with a few more requirements to work
out their brains and stir their cognitive abilities.
The
other aim of the exercise is to make the students aware of the importance of critical
reading in preparing for good critical writing. You’ll see how students can
identify the opinions in the reading and exploit them perfectly well in writing
to show they understand the text as it should be. The writing section is based
essentially of the amount of assimilation the students have got from the text
and react to that accordingly.
V. Sample Reading Test
~ What do you think about Jamal? ~
Hi, my name is Jamal. I usually get up at seven
o'clock in the morning. It's early, but
it is OK. First, I often wash my hands and face, and then I always play video
games on my smartphone until 7:30. Next, I have a big breakfast: three glasses
of tea, two eggs and some bread and butter. After that, I get dressed, pack my
school things and leave for school at about 7:45. I always go there
on foot because it is not far. After I come back home, I eat a sandwich for
lunch and go out. I never go to school in the afternoon because it
is boring. I usually go to the stadium to play football with my friends. In the
evening, before I have dinner, I often watch TV for an hour. Later, I chat with
my friends on the internet. Finally, I usually go to bed at about midnight. I
am happy with life like this.
Question the content carefully
I. COMPREHENSION
A. Answer these questions
1. What
time does Jamal wake up?
_________________________________________________
2. What is
Jamal?
_________________________________________________
3. What
does he usually do in the morning?
_________________________________________________
4. What
does he do in the afternoon?
_________________________________________________
5. What
does he do in the evening?
_________________________________________________
6. Do you
like Jamal’s life style? Why or why not?
_________________________________________________
B. Are these sentences True or
False? Justify
1. Jamal
usually gets up early. ___________
_________________________________________________
2. Jamal is
a clean boy. ___________
_________________________________________________
3. Jamal
has got a bike. ___________
_________________________________________________
4. He has
dinner after he watches TV. ___________
_________________________________________________
5. Jamal
goes to sleep early. ___________
_________________________________________________
C. What do the underlined
words in the text refer to?
1. "there" (line 6) _______________ 2. "it" (line 7) _______________
D.
Find the opposite of these words in the text.
1.
late ______________2 .
small __________________
3.
close ______________ 4.
come in ______________
5. interesting
_______________ 6.
sad ________________
E. Find 3 of Jamal’s Opinions in the
text
1. ________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________
3. ________________________________________________
II. WRITING
Write
a paragraph about Jamal's daily routines.These Questions may guide you
v
What time does he usually get up in the morning?
v
What
does he do then?
v
How does
he usually go to school?
v
How
often does he go to school in the afternoon?
v
Why does
he usually go to school?
v
What
does he have for lunch?
v
What
does he do before he goes to bed?
v
What do you think about Jamal?
N.B: It is not necessary to answer
all the questions above. They are there for guidance only. Start with
the following sentence.
Jamal usually gets up at 7 O'clock in the morning...
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
As you can see the test is put in the usual reading comprehension test
format the students are used to. However, some specific tormenting inquiries
are inserted to progressively change the tide of tradition towards more
critical thinking efforts wanted exerted by the learners. Let’s see why they
are there and what effect they would have on the testees once they have to sit
for an exam.
1. Comprehension => Rubric A => Question 6
- Do you like Jamal’s life style? Why or why
not?
This
question is a little challenging for beginners because it calls for taking a
strict position towards the mode of life Jamal leads with enough justifiable
arguments tending persuasion. So the teacher is not required to test the position
per se, but rather the ability of the learners to clarify their choices and to
manifesting their active interaction with the text and the question’s
implication as well. The teacher’s role is only to accept whatsoever well
thought of positions with solid arguments and evidence from the text. Reading
One
of my students says she likes Jamal’s way of life because he looks free to do
whatever he wants. She just hurried to see freedom in Jamal’s life style
without considering other factors. I accepted her choice momentarily until she
got sure she could elaborate on this sort of freedom by considering other
factors such as the parents, the school authority and so on. By the way, she had
changed her mind when she discovered she had missed to take into consideration such
elements that could have been easily read between the lines. She corrected
herself as soon as I had asked them to detect Jamal’s opinions in the text.
We’ll come to this later on, when we discuss “rubric E”.
2. Comprehension => Rubric B => Question 1
- Jamal usually gets up early.
Here the students are
required to say if the sentence is true or false and justify the answer with
solid evidence. There are two possible answers expected. Non-critical readers’
answer and it could be this
- True: Jamal says “It is early, but it is OK”.
The critical readers, on the other hand, are expected to have a
completely different answer. They would question the statement and try to
evaluate it sceptically.
- False: 7 O'clock is not early at all.
The teacher can easily see the effect; the student doesn't just
understand the text, but analyses and synthesizes the information provided.
3. Comprehension => Rubric B => Question 3
- Jamal has got a bike.
Still
in the True or False rubric, the learners are confronted with another very challenging
situation. Here again, the teacher would expect two opposite answers.
Non-critical readers would answer it FALSE based on the information provided by
Jamal in the text that he usually goes to school on foot. They infer that since
he goes to school on foot, this means he hasn't got a bike. Whereas, the missed
piece of information “[school] is
not far” is overlooked. The fact that he goes to
school on foot doesn't mean he hasn't got a bike, but rather because school is
not far. If they were active readers, they would certainly take that piece of
information into account.
Well, the critical readers
among the students would analyse the statement carefully and infer that it is more
likely to be TRUE (a young boy without a bike is somehow weird), provided that
both possibilities are correct. He might have a bike that he rides in errands,
but he never uses for going to school because the distance is so short between
his house and school that he can just walk it. The good critical readers,
however, would not answer TRUE or FALSE, but they would write “can’t say”,
because no clear evidence is provided in the text about this point.
Needless to remind you
that in conventional reading tests type, the teachers ask the students to base
their answers completely on the text; which means that they should take from
the text not add information to it. Sticking to the text in answers is actually
what traditional methods stress severely. Consequently, correct answers are
identical in all the testees papers. That’s why no active critical reading is
developed. What about academic studies? These same students will soon be
required to go beyond the text, to read actively, critically and creatively.
4. Comprehension => Rubric E => Question 1
- Pick out 3 of Jamal’s Opinions in the text.
This
question particularly is meant to train the students to distinguish between
facts and opinions. This will, later on, protect them from fallacies where the
opinion is presented as a refutable fact. This exercise help the students get
aware of such things as “since it is in the text, so it is true for everybody”.
The students easily find the three opinions notably,
1. 7 O'clock in the morning is early,
but it is OK
2. School is boring
3. “I'm happy with life like this”
No one agrees with these opinions (including my student I mentioned
above). The students have to think about such points of view and try to find
why they are so abnormal. “School is boring” is what the students would find a
little odd. The teacher can go a bit further to ask them about the role of
parents and school to redress these strange attitudes.
5. Writing => paragraph writing
The teacher
could ask them to write a paragraph talking about their daily routines, but it
would be better to ask them to write a paragraph about Jamal for two urgent
reasons:
1.
To change the “I” of the text into a “he”. And this is a purely grammatical
exercise.
2.
To encourage them write critically. They would include all their remarks into
their writing like; “Jamal usually gets up at 7 O'clock in the morning, and he
thinks it's early. …”
Finally, don't just underestimate this
generation. Although they look lethargic and passive, they are keen on breaking
the old outdated norms, and they look very motivated when challenged. They may
astonish you. Good luck
VI. Conclusion
When
the students become acquainted with reading actively, critically and creatively,
teachers will never be obliged to advise them to read only interesting pieces
of writing to protect them from ill-intentioned writings. Now, no fear for them
as everything will become interesting, and they can take profit from it. Once
they are able to distinguish the strong from the weak or the winding evidence,
and they can read between the lines, they are shielded against any tricks or
logical fallacies susceptible to influence them negatively.
The learners will quickly
take it for granted that each piece of writing is a potential subject for
assessment and debate, rather than for blind approval. It is true that they
rarely, if never, read anything beside their textbooks; and even textbooks are
occasionally opened (Arum and Roksa). They must persevere engaging with texts
to get the most out of them, they have no choice as far as they are students. However,
this active and critical approach to texts could also be beneficial for them
when they read something on some facebook walls, or when they watch a video on
YouTube. They will at least learn to adopt a positive sceptical method to
dealing with what they read, see or hear.
For More Information about Critical reading
1. In print, critical reading and writing
(Longman series in college composition and communication) by Martin
Stevens
2. Critical
reading and writing by Martin Stevens, Jeffery Kluewer (Longman
Publishing Group, 1983)
3. Academically
Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses by R. Arum and J. Roksa.
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