introduction

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UNIT 1

INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL READING

he key to success in college, in all courses, in all disciplines, is critical reading. Critical reading is concentrated, active, engaged reading. At its core, critical reading involves annotating a text: underlining and writing key words in the margins. Why read critically if it is so hard? First, if you read critically, you will make better grades in this course and in all your courses.

More importantly, you will learn more and more deeply, which is your higher goal in college. Most important of all, critical reading is the first step toward becoming a critical thinker. You will not only be a better student, but you will be a more informed citizen and a fuller human being. Critical reading, then, is not only the key to success in college, but a key to success in life. Critical reading will probably seem hard at first, especially if you have never done it, but it will become easier with practice. Isn’t that true of any hard skill you have tried to master: kicking a soccer ball, playing a musical instrument, swimming the breaststroke? As hard as it seems when you begin, critical reading will pay you intellectual rewards far beyond what you can imagine.

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In college, a crucial element of critical thinking involves learning to read critically, because much of what you write and think about is in respons to what you read. Critical reading involves more than passively absorbing words on a page. It’s an active process.

Critical reading is only an extended and focused version of the kind of thinking we all do every day when we set out to solve problems: we gather evidence, we examine options, we look at advantages and disadvantages, and we weigh other’s opinions for posibble bias.

Things you should do when you read critically:

 Read as a believer and a doubter, you will get the most from your readng if you approach it with an own open mind. Try to learn something, even for perspectives contrary to your own. An excellent way to engage with your reading is to play what the writing expert Peter Elbow calls the

“believing and doubting game.” This approach asks you to read and respond to a piece, each time adopting a dramatically different attitude.

to play the “believing” half of the game, read the piece as much generosity as you can muster. Try to see what makes the argument so compelling to the writer, and look for claims, examples, or beliefs that seem reasonable or persuasive. Keying in on strenghts may keep you from rejecting the writer’s arguments prematurely. Write a paragrph exploring whatever seems most worth believing in the piece.

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Then read the piece a second time as a “doubter.” Scrutinize every statement for gaps, exaggeration, errors, and faulty reasoning. Ferret out any problems you can see in the writer’s perspective, even if you agree with it.

Again, summarize your conclusions in a paragraph. Finding weakness will prevent you from accepting the argument to readily.

 Asses the writer’s qualifications. Does the writer have expertise in or personal experience with the topic? Does he or she demonstrate adequate knowledge? You might find, in reading a debate about obscene lyrics in hip-hop, that some of the loudest calls for censorship come from writers who admit they have never listened to the music. A lack of expert qualifications doesn’t necessarily invalidate a writer’s arguments, but it should make you examine them with extra care.

 Look carefully at the evidence presented. A strong argument must back up its claims. When you read an argument, size up its supporting evidence.

o How much evidence does the writer present? Does the amount of support seem substantial enough, or does the writer rely on just one or two examples?

o Where does the evidence come from? Is it recent, or is it so old that it may no longer be accurate? Does it seem trustworthy, or does the writer rely on dubious souces?

o is the evidence fairly and fully presented? Do you suspect that the writer has manipulated information in order to make his or her case look better.

 Assess whether the writer’s claims go beyond what the evidence actually supports. Does the writer draw conclusions that go beyond what his or her support warrants? For instance, safety experts once made claims about the safety of air bags based-on crash-test data calculated for crash dummies the size of adult men. These claims didn’t hold true for children and small women. Faced with dozens of fatalities attributed to injuries caused by airbags, those experts admitted that their original clams went beyond what the data had established.

Although overstating one’s claims doesn’t usually result in such tragic consequences, you should question any argument that strecthes its conclusions too far.

 Look for what’s note there: the unstated assumptions, belief, and values that underlie the argument. Does the writer take for granted certain knowledge or beliefs? If what someone takes for granted in an argument can reasonably be disputed, then you should challenge the author’s claims.

Consider the assumptions made in this sentence, taken from an article advocating the legalization of drugs.

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The violence brought about by the black market in drugs is attributable in large part to the fact that we have chosen to make criminal out of people who have a disease.

The statement makes two assumptions: (1) People who buy and sell drugs do so primarily because they suffer from a sickness—addiction—beyond their control. (2) It is wrong to criminalize behavior that results from illness. Both assumptions may well be true, but without further explanation and support, a reader might question them on the following grounds: (1) Drugs offenders may engage in illegal behavior not because they’re sick but for profit, for entertainment, or as a response to peer presure.(2) Even if drug abuse results from illness, so do many other crimes punishable by law; we don’t legalize drunk driving just because many drunk drivers are alcoholics.

 Note any contradiction. Look for places where pieces of an argument don’t fit together. Suppose a political candidate advocates mandatory prison sentences for first-time drug offenders yet dismisses as

“immature behavior” her own use of alcohol and other drugs as a young adult. One should question why the candidate excuses for herself behavior that she condems in others.

 Examine the writer’s word choices to identify underlying biases.

Everyone has biases—it’s unavoidable. It’s only natural that writers who want to convince others use language that favors their own point of view. But critical reading requires that you be sensitive to such biases so that you aren’t unwritingly swayed by them.

Being a critical reader doesn’t mean you have to distrust everything you read. But you should be alert when writers overload their prose with what rhetorician call “good terms” (words such as democratic, responsible, natural, fair) or “ devil terms” (words such as destructif, fanatic, immoral, selfish).

 Be skeptical of simple solution to complex problems, and resist black and white thinking. Be warry of quick easy answers to difficult problems.

Most serious issues are complex—there is seldom one “right solution”

Consider the complex issue of affirmative action in college admission and the calls from many sectors that shools judge prospective students on merit rather than taking rasial, ethnic, and economic background into account. Here are a few of questions that complicate the solution.

o What, exactly, constitutes “merit”? Test scores and grades?

Special talent in a single area, such as a music or sports? Good character? If all these factors count how should each be weighed?

o Should students who come from educatioanlly disadvantages background be judged by the same standards as more privileged students?

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o Do some measures of merit favor certain groups of students over others? For example, using high school class rankings as an admissions criterion may work against students who graduate from elite high schools with many high-achieving students.

o Do schools have a responsibility to make up for past discrimination against particular groups? If so, what should this obligation entail?

Any solution to a problem, however perfect it may seem, has consequences. As you read an argument. Look for evidence that the writer has neglected to consider the long-term implication of his or her position.

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1. Find at least two places in the poem where the poet employed alliteration. Identify these phrases or sections and explain how they demontstrate alliteration.

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2. Find two examples each of assonance and onomatopoeia. Identify these examples below and explain how they demonstrate these two techniques.

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3. Why do you think the author used so many sound devices in this poem? How do these sound devices contribute to the overall effect of the poem.

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^{Exercise 2}

Read the following passage

Insight of Flight

Many know that Antoine de Saint Exupery wrote the children’s classic Le Petit Prince or The Little Prince, but few are aware that he also worked as a mail pilot. To some, the combination of these diverse careers might come as a surprise.

To Saint-Exupery, there was nothing more natural. As a pilot, he spent many long, thoughtful hours alone with the sky. While flying over the mail routes of Africa, South America and the South Atlantic, Saint Exupery pondered the purpose of human existence. He found his answers among the clouds, and he used writing to express his revelations.

As a child, Saint Exupery longed for adventure. In the 1920s, after failing the entrance exam to the naval academy, Saint Exupery began flying as a commercial pilot for France’s booming mail industry, helping to establish airmail routes in remote regions. His first assignment was an airstrip in the western Sahara, and the two years he spent in the desert were some of the happiest years of his life. During these years, Saint-Exupery was much more than a mailman. He was an adventurer, an ambassador, and a hero. He negotiated the rescue of aviators captured by Arabic tribes; he recovered stranded planes and injured aviators; and he survived many crash landings.

These adventures became the subject of his novels. In Night Filght (1931), an account of flying in South America, Saint-Exupery described these experiences with lyrical beauty. He wrote of the novel’s hero.”Sometimes, after a hundred miles of steppes as desolate as the sea, he encountered a lonely farmhouse that seemed to be sailing backwards from him in a great prairie sea, with its freight of human lives; and he saluted with his wings this passing ship.” To Saint-Exupery, the earth was most beautiful when the window of his airplane framed it.

In the 1930, Saint Exupery became disillusioned with aviation, which he felt was becoming more of a science than an art. However, he continued to fly as a commercial pilot even as France entered World War II. By 1942, France was thoroughly devastated

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by the war. Feeling powerless and heartsick, Saint-Exupery went to the New York where he released “ the prince asleep within him” as a form of therapy and began to write The Little Princ. The book took flight immediately.

When the story opens, a pilot is describing how a crash in the Sahara led him to an encounter with a strange child. This child claimed to be a prince from a tiny planet where he lived alone with three volcanoes and a haughty rose. (The pilot later scientifically identifies the prince’s home as the asteroid B-612.) Scorned by this rude rose, the small prince left his home and began to travel across the galaxy. The themes IN The Little Prince—loneliness, the quest for the meaning of life, and the hope of finding relief in the stars—echo those of Saint-Exupery’s own life. Both characters represent aspects of the author’s life: the aviator, whose crash leads him to beauty and wisdom, and the lonely prince, who stretches his arms through light years in search of an embrance.

In 1943, Saint-Exupery returned home and fought for France’s liberation. On July 31, 1944, flying a solo mission over German-occupied southern France, he disappeared. Neither he nor his plane was ever found. It seemed as though they had vanished into the air, much like the prince at the end of Saint-Exupery’s novel. Was it a mere coincidence that The Little Prince, his last book, was published one year before the author/pilot’s disappearance during a flight.

For lovers of The Little Prince, it seemed appropriate that his death was mysterious. Mystery, after all, leaves room for the imagination. At the end of a profile about Saint-Exupery, the writer Duncan Elliot states,”But Saint-Exupery’s image dmands more than an earthly homage:450 million kilometers away, in orbit between Mars and Jupiter is a 20-km chunk of metal. Asteroid Saint-Exupery. I hope he’s on it.”

1. What is the main purpose of this essay?

a. To describe Saint-Exupery’s work as a commercial pilot b. To explain why Saint-Exupery wrote The Little Prince c. To show how Saint-Exupery blended his two passions d. To discuss Saint-Exupery’s work in the Sahara

2. Which word best describes the tone of this passage?

a. Objective b. Admiring c. Crtical d. Scientific

3. Which term best describes the following line from paragraph four?

“The book took flight immediately.”

a. Simile b. Cliché c. Epitaph d. metaphor

4. Based on the author’s description, which of the following best describes the personality of Antoine se Saint-Exupery?

a. Arrogant and melancholy b. Depenable and adored

c. Adventurous and disillusioned

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d. Noble and serious

5. Which of the following quotes most relies on figurative language for its effectiveness?

a. “…Saint-Exuprey was much more than a mailman.”

b. “Mystery, after all, leaves room for the imagination.”

c. “… he spent many long, thoughful hours alone with the sky.”

d. “… he saluted with his wings this passing ship.”

Question no.

To An Aviator By Daniel Whitehead Hicky You who have grown so intimate with stars And how their silver dripping from your wings, Swept with the breaking day across the sky, Known kinship with each meteor that swings—

You who have touched the rainbow’s fragile gold, Carved lyric ways through dawn and dusk and rain And soared to heights our heart have only dreamed—l How can you talk earth’s common ways again?

Perspective By Amanda Elliot Takeoff.

The long, heavy plane rdes up in the air, tilts into the horizon

and the world is offered sideways, a board game with plastic houses affixed to green lawns, and roads where cars inch patiently as if pushed by a lazy child.

Swimming pools become lima bean holes

and all the highways roll out as calm and still as lines on a map.

Climb higher, and the details disappear.

The world is reduced to marks:

grids, circles, squares, and squiggles.

Higher yet, we move into the fleet, silent world of clouds that drift

across endless expanses of blue, oblivious to the urgent flow of life below, knowing nothing of time or edges or endings.

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6. Which of the following best describes the mood of Elliot’s poem?

A. Dreamy B. Urgent C. Somber D. nervous

7. In Elliot’s poem, which literary technique is represented in the following lines?

“… and the world is offered/sideways, a boardgame/with plastic houses affixed/ to green lawns…”

A. Foreshadowing B. Flashback C. Metaphor D. oxymoron

8. Elliot’s poem best expresses which of the following ideas?

A. How flying helps one appreciate the natural beauty of Earth B. How flying provides a fresh way of seeing the world

C. How flying offers travelers new insight into themselves D. How flying is the best way to travel

9. Which literary technique is illustrated through repeating the “d” and “h”

sounds in these lines from stanza two of Hicky’s poem?

“Carved lyric ways through dawn and dusk and rain/ And soared to heights our hearts have only dreamed…”

A. Assonance B. Alliteration C. Rhyme

D. Onomatopoeia

10.What is the main purpose of the last line of Hicky’s poem?

A. To sum up the poem’s theme B. To contradict ideas stated earlier C. To create a sense of mystery

D. To express the poet’s mixed feelings

11.Which of the following theme is shared by the two poems and essay about Saint-Exupery?

A. The magical quality of flight

B. The sadness of returning to Earth after flight C. The loneliness of flight

D. The importance of pursuing one’s passion

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