ANALYZING LITERATURE: CRITICAL READING SKILLS

Week 1

Critical Reading Skills

■ You have likely been reading since you were a young child, so why would we need to talk about reading skills in a literature course? Reading critically involves using analytical skills that focus on not only what the text says (plot, characters, etc.) but also how it can be interpreted. A close reading of a literary work is required before attempting to write about it. The more closely you observe a literary passage, the better able you will be able to gather information and consider what it might add up to, which will then lead to your own analysis of the text.

■ This learning activity will provide you with tools to critically analyze and read a text.

Titles

■ First, closely examine the title and anticipate possible questions that you might look for an answer to as you approach the text. For example, if you are reading “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, you might consider the words ’young’ and ‘good’ and formulate questions to help you to read actively. These are possible questions you might consider:

■ Why would the author specify that Goodman Brown is young? Should I look for significance of his youth when I read? Is Goodman Brown the character’s name? Is there something significant about the author using the word “good”? Brown seems like a plain name; is the character plain, or is this noteworthy?

Diction (Word Choice)

■ Next, consider word choice. Authors, poets particularly, painstakingly choose a word to express the precise meaning intended; therefore, be sure to look up an unfamiliar word to gain a clear understanding of both its connotative and denotative meaning. For example, in the story “Neighbour Rosicky”, Cather chooses the word “protested” when describing Rosicky’s reaction to finding out he has a bad heart. Think about all of the associations of the verb to protest. How does the use of this term as opposed to object affect the reader’s interpretation?

Narration

■ Further, it is important to consider how the story comes to readers. In other words, who is telling the story—the narrator. What does the narrator know about the characters and events in the story? Is the narrator a participator in the story’s events? For example, Franklin’s “Way to Wealth” begins with a narrator who addresses the reader specifically as “Courteous Reader”. Then, the narrator provides a bit of background, and identifies himself as a writer of almanacs. However, the reader soon finds out that this narrator is relating an incident that he witnessed, and the majority of the remainder of the text is of another narrator (note the use of quotation marks to show this point). Here we have a narrator within a narration. This makes for multiple levels of narration, which might have a bearing on the reader’s interpretation of the work, and it is important to take note of.

Annotating■ Finally, read with a pen or pencil in hand. Whether you annotate the

text by underlining or highlighting key words or phrases or choose to use a reading journal, you will begin to find yourself paying close attention and begin to think and read critically! When you annotate, you might make use of all of the aspects that we have examined: the title, diction, narration, etc. Below you will see an example of a possible annotation of the introduction to Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”.“Whoever has made a voyage up

the Hudson, must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers.”

My thoughts about this passage:

Interesting because the history of families are often represented as family trees and the mountains are described in such a way.The word “noble” makes me think of kings and “lording it over” as a ruler of some sort. Just in this one sentence, ‘change’ is repeated three times. Repetition is important to notice, so I wonder how this might be noteworthy—this is an aspect I might look for as I read on. Somehow, the mountains are described as barometers, so they predict something to do with the weather?

Now that you have these skills in your repertoire, you will begin to learn how to incorporate quotes into your own writing and how to correctly format both in-text and end reference citations.

Happy reading and analyzing!