Someone wrote asking:
"For the second blog post, you mentioned that we should close read and question the text. Is that all we need to do? Come up with questions for the section that we did for the value graph that analyze the text? Like ask why Sinclair did or didn’t do something in the story and then try to answer it? Is that right; am I on the right track?”
Close-reading means that you are on the lookout for what is surprising. What surprises us is something that defies or cuts against our expectations.
Our expectations are given by our projections, and we always and already project in advance of reading anything. Our projections are indeed what we “read for.” So, you need to already have a “reading for” before you can “read for” what is surprising in the text.
So, for instance, you might write about what expectations you had while reading the text (based in the text itself), but then attend to aspects of the text that would normally be IGNORED in favor of a reading that would seek to fulfill what you are reading for. It is important to quote specific words, phrases, sentences that you then discuss what they mean, etc.
So, it’s not just coming up with questions: you need to also generate some interpretations of what you’re reading. You need to make conjectures. How are you making sense of a particular scene? What is that scene’s relationship to the story? Are there any elements in the scene that are surprising?
How many of you were surprised with how Demian, the character, “read” the Cain and Able story?
How many of you noticed what Demian, the character, READS FOR whenever he reads anything?
"For the second blog post, you mentioned that we should close read and question the text. Is that all we need to do? Come up with questions for the section that we did for the value graph that analyze the text? Like ask why Sinclair did or didn’t do something in the story and then try to answer it? Is that right; am I on the right track?”
Close-reading means that you are on the lookout for what is surprising. What surprises us is something that defies or cuts against our expectations.
Our expectations are given by our projections, and we always and already project in advance of reading anything. Our projections are indeed what we “read for.” So, you need to already have a “reading for” before you can “read for” what is surprising in the text.
So, for instance, you might write about what expectations you had while reading the text (based in the text itself), but then attend to aspects of the text that would normally be IGNORED in favor of a reading that would seek to fulfill what you are reading for. It is important to quote specific words, phrases, sentences that you then discuss what they mean, etc.
So, it’s not just coming up with questions: you need to also generate some interpretations of what you’re reading. You need to make conjectures. How are you making sense of a particular scene? What is that scene’s relationship to the story? Are there any elements in the scene that are surprising?
How many of you were surprised with how Demian, the character, “read” the Cain and Able story?
How many of you noticed what Demian, the character, READS FOR whenever he reads anything?