Teaching Journal (3): Close reading exercise

Week 5: I tried something completely new today, what I decided to call "close reading exercise." It turned out that a student had dropped the course and one of the readings for this week did not have an assigned student presenter. I had initially decided to lecture on it myself but then I came up with a different plan.

The students had just submitted their first concept paper, which is basically a key-term paper and so relies on close reading of text and comprehension. Yet I've come to realize, as a former undergraduate myself, that students are not really taught how to read these texts that often use sophisticated stylistic devices, such as irony and imagery. I keep wondering just how much students fully understand the readings. Or are they assuming the meaning of what they read? Or are they projecting what they want to read?

I divided the article, "Straw men and their followers" by Evelynn Hammonds, into four sections and divided the class into four groups. Each group was responsible for reading one section, summarize it, point out the arguments, identify stylistic devices and style of reasoning. I wanted to give them about 10 mins for the exercise but the discussions were quite lively and it was obvious to me that they were really engaging with one another and with the text so I let it go on for 20 mins.

At the very least from the immediate verbal feedback, students pointed out that there were slight discrepancies in how they read the text but also how each person ended up contradicting her/himself in trying to encapsulate Hammonds' argument. They pointed out stylistic devices, such as tone, sarcasm, irony, use of air quotes and rhetorical questions and the ways in which these devices help to support her argument.

Some of the drawbacks of this exercise were that, because students were given sections of an article, they weren't aware of the bigger picture in the argument. There were some misunderstandings and confusion as a result. But I pointed out that this confusion points to the importance of argumentative flow and completeness, as well as writings that get taken out of context, which not only happens in academia but also journalism and everyday interactions.

I personally found the exercise helpful. It gave me a chance to see how they read. And I think it did the same for them... at least, that's what I hope. I ended the exercise by explaining my rationale. We are so well trained to critique, critique, critique that we forget to really pay attention to what someone writes and honour their position as well as the work they have put into their work. I asked whether anyone has had an experience where they were arguing with someone but it turned out they were arguing about completely different things or were actually arguing for the same thing. This happens in academic writing as well. Misreading and misunderstanding are fairly common. Close-reading and writing concept papers are part of my effort to develop skills in meaningful critique, which I believe starts with close-reading and comprehension.