1997 Critical thinking is best understood as the ability of thinkers to take charge of their own thinking. This requires that they develop sound criteria and standards for analyzing and assessing their own thinking and routinely use those criteria and standards to improve its quality. Journal of Developmental Education , Fall 1994. These seven critical reading strategies can be learned readily and then applied not only to reading selections in a Literature class, but also to your other college reading. Mastering these strategies will help you handle difficult material with confidence.
Most readers annotate in layers, adding further annotations on second and third readings.
Annotations can be light or heavy, depending on the reader's purpose and the difficulty of the material. Learning about a text before really reading it. Previewing enables readers to get a sense of what the text is about and how it is organized before reading it closely. This simple strategy includes seeing what you can learn from the headnotes or other introductory material, skimming to get an overview of the content and organization, and identifying the rhetorical situation. Placing a text in its historical, biographical, and cultural contexts.