Critical Thinking in Reading

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Richard Bu
Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine

Whats Critical Thinking?

Reasoned judgments: logical & well thoug

ht out
Way of thinking: questioning arguments
& Conclusion
E.g. 'How do you know that? Is this conclu
sion based on evidence or just feelings?
'Are there alternative possibilities when g
iven new pieces of information?'

Three core skills of Critical Thinking

1. Curiosity is the desire to learn more informati

on and seek evidence as well as being open to ne
w ideas.
2. Skepticism involves having a healthy question
ing attitude about new information that you are e
xposed to and not blindly believing everything ev
eryone tells you.
3. Humility is the ability to admit that your opini
ons and ideas are wrong when faced with new co
nvincing evidence that states otherwise.

Steps for Text Critical Readin

g

Teaching critical reading skill

s

https://youtu.be/2lT3ZNd3yeo

After reading a piece of text, students

should be able to answer the following
questions:
1.What does the text say? (Briefly
summarize the short story at a literal level.)
2.How does it say it? In other words, how
does the author develop the text to convey
his/her purpose? (What are the genre,
format, organization, features, etc.?)
3.What does the text mean? (What
message/theme/concept is the author trying
to get across?)

After reading an advertiseme

nt

how an ad was constructed;

for what audience(s);
using which techniques; and
who benefits from the message and its pl
acement.

An art approach might involve studying

layout
design
color
font
image composition

Teaching Practice

Ask students what is the purpose of adve

rtising? and most will probably say to sell
something. But I would argue that adverti
sing is much more than simply selling.

More than anything, its about persua

sion . Challenge students to create a log

of all the ads they come into contact with

during a typical day.
Where did they see the ads?
What do they recall?
Are they influenced by ads? (Just ask the
m to explain the logos on their clothes.)

Close Reading

read every word on the page (even words

in small font)
make a list of all of the images
consider the layout, color, design, and f
ont

How else might we use this a

d?

identify the slogan;

tell the story;
notice the colors and other attention-gett
ers;
identify the point-of-view;
who has the power;
how does your eye move as you read the
ad?

Further ad deconstruction

who created this ad (the answer is not on th

e ad)
what is the purpose of the ad?
who is the audience for the ad: what are th
e clues;
what magazine would you expect to publish
an ad like this?
what is omitted and why? and where can st
udents find the answers to whats missing?

Post-reading activities

After your students have gained experien

ce at analyzing ads, you should consider g
iving them opportunities to create ads.
(Creation sits atop the list of higher order
thinking skills in this proposed Blooms
Digital Taxonomy.)

Assignment
Student are required to create an advertis
ement
For their daily favorite brand.
e.g. sports wears, beverage, vehicles, etc.

To be continued