[11] R&W - Critical Reading as Reasoning

• Reading - act of looking at printed words and making meaning; a multifaceted process involving a variety of different skills, including decoding, word recognition, comprehension, fluency, and motivation
• Reasoning - using a reason or cause in order to explain or justify something
• Critical Reading - a technique for discovering information and ideas within a text; making judgements about how a text is argued; highly reflective skill requiring you to stand back and gain some distance from the text you are reading
• Critical Reader - someone who defends something by giving out reasons; should be able to use textual evidence when asked to support analysis of the implicit and explicit information presented by a writer in a text; "Am I really thinking about what I'm reading?"
• Characteristics of Sound Reasoning

  • Substantiate your ideas with facts from other people
  • Focused on the issue, explain/defend your side in regards to an issue or an argument
  • Tries to represent the view of not just one person
  • Does not attack people to discredit them make their arguments less credible