Assignment: Close Analytic Reading Analytical Reading The Intentional and Affective Fallacy The Death of the Author Inspectional Reading Syntopical Reading Becoming a Demanding Reader

For the department of English and Media studies.

By Prof DR Sohail Ansari

Dead line: 13th April

(The assignments are in compliance to instruction from higher authorities so that learning remains uninterrupted despite the closure of university)

(This assignment is 5^th  of the series of assignments calculated to initiate students into the art of reading)

A Guide to Creating Text Dependent Questions for Close Analytic Reading Text Dependent Questions: What Are They?

The Common Core State Standards for reading strongly focus on students gathering evidence, knowledge, and insight from what they read.

Text dependent analysis:

As the name suggests, a text dependent question specifically asks a question that can only be answered by referring explicitly back to the text being read. It does not rely on any particular background information extraneous to the text nor depend on students having other experiences or knowledge; instead it privileges the text itself and what students can extract from what is before them. For example, in a close analytic reading of Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” the following would not be text dependent questions:

 • Why did the North fight the civil war?

 • Have you ever been to a funeral or gravesite?

• Lincoln says that the nation is dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.”

·         Why is equality an important value to promote?

The overarching problem with these questions is that they require no familiarity at all with Lincoln’s speech in order to answer them. Responding to these sorts of questions instead requires students to go outside the text. Such questions can be tempting to ask because they are likely to get students talking, but they take students away from considering the actual point Lincoln is making. They seek to elicit a personal or general response that relies on individual experience and opinion, and answering them will not move students closer to understanding the text of the “Gettysburg Address.”

Good text dependent questions will often linger over specific phrases and sentences to ensure careful comprehension of the text—they help students see something worthwhile that they would not have seen on a more cursory reading.

Typical text dependent questions ask students to perform one or more of the following tasks:

• Analyze paragraphs on a sentence by sentence basis and sentences on a word by word basis to determine the role played by individual paragraphs, sentences, phrases, or words

 • Investigate how meaning can be altered by changing key words and why an author may have chosen one word over another

• Probe each argument in persuasive text, each idea in informational text, each key detail in literary text, and observe how these build to a whole

• Examine how shifts in the direction of an argument or explanation are achieved and the impact of those shifts

• Question why authors choose to begin and end when they do

• Note and assess patterns of writing and what they achieve

 • Consider what the text leaves uncertain or unstated

Exercise:

Go for a close analytic reading of any President Trump’s speech and prepare text dependent and text independent questions.

……………………………………………………………………………………

Creating Text-Dependent Questions for Close Analytic Reading of Texts.

 An effective set of text dependent questions delves systematically into a text to guide students in extracting the key meanings or ideas found there. They typically begin by exploring specific words, details, and arguments and then moves on to examine the impact of those specifics on the text as a whole. Along the way they target academic vocabulary and specific sentence structures as critical focus points for gaining comprehension.

Analytical Reading - Farnam Street

The Art of Reading: Analytical Reading

The first rule of analytical reading is that you must know what kind of book you are reading.

Are you reading a novel, a play, or is it some sort of expository (intended to explain or describe something) work – a book that conveys knowledge?

This sounds simple but it’s not. For example, is Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint a work of fiction or a psychoanalytical study? Is Gone with the Wind a romance or history of the south?

Any book that consists primarily of opinions, theories, hypotheses, or speculations, for which the claim is made more or less explicitly that they are true in some sense, conveys knowledge in this meaning of knowledge and is an expository work.

The goal is more nuanced than distinguishing fiction from nonfiction, because there are various kinds of expository books.

It is not merely a question of knowing which books are primarily instructive, but also which are instructive in a particular way. The kinds of information or enlightenment that a history and a philosophical work afford are not the same. The problems dealt with by a book on physics and one on morals are not the same, nor are the methods the writers employ in solving such different problems.

The best way to do this is through inspectional reading.

Practical vs. Theoretical Books

One of the things we need to focus on is the distinction between practical and theoretical works. While we all use these words not all of us understand the meaning.

The practical has to do with what works in some way, at once or in the long run. The theoretical concerns something to be seen or understood. If we polish the rough truth that is here being grasped, we come to the distinction between knowledge and action as the two ends a writer may have in mind.

But, you may say, in dealing with expository books, are we not dealing with books that convey knowledge? How does action come into it? The answer, of course, is that intelligent action depends on knowledge.

Books only interested in conveying knowledge itself limit themselves to one type of communication and leave the rest to others. Others, it can be said, have an interest beyond knowledge for the sake of knowledge and concern themselves with problems that knowledge can solve.

Making knowledge useful involves the transformation of knowing that and knowing how.

Theoretical books teach you that something is the case. Practical books teach you how to do something you want to do or think you should do.

Practical books will tell you how something should be done along with an argument for the right way of doing something. A theoretical book, in contrast, will argue that something “is” true.

Blueprints

Every book has structure. This leads us to the second and third rules for analytical reading.

The second rule of analytical reading is state the unity of the whole book in a single sentence, or at most a few sentences (a short paragraph).

This means that you must say what the whole book is about as briefly as possible.

The third rule is to set forth the major parts of the book, and show how these are organized into a whole, by being ordered to one another and to the unity of the whole.

The reason for this rule should be obvious. If a work of art were absolutely simple, it would, of course, have no parts. But that is never the case. None of the sensible, physical things man knows is simple in this absolute way, nor is any human production. They are all complex unities. You have not grasped a complex unity if all you know about it is how it is one. You must also know how it is many, not a many that consists of a lot of separate things, but an organized many.

Exercise:

Explain:

‘You have not grasped a complex unity if all you know about it is how it is one. You must also know how it is many, not a many that consists of a lot of separate things, but an organized many.’

There is a difference between a heap of bricks, on the one hand, and the single house they can constitute, on the other. There is a difference between a single house and a collection of houses. A book is like a single house. It is a mansion having many rooms, rooms on different levels, of different sizes and shapes, with different outlooks, with different uses. The rooms are independent, in part. Each has its own structure and interior decoration. But they are not absolutely independent and separate. They are connected by doors and arches, by corridors and stairways, by what architects call a “traffic pattern.” Because they are connected, the partial function that each performs contributes its share to the usefulness of the whole house. Otherwise the house would not be livable.

The analogy is almost perfect. A good book, like a good house, is an orderly arrangement of parts. Each major part has a certain amount of independence. … As houses are more or less livable, so books are more or less readable.

Exercise:

Explain:

‘The analogy is almost perfect’ what a writer means by analogy?

The best books, Adler argues, are those that have the most intelligible structure.

Though they are usually more complex than poorer books, their greater complexity is also a greater simplicity, because their parts are better organized, more unified.

Exercise:

Explain:

‘Though they are usually more complex than poorer books, their greater complexity is also a greater simplicity’

How important is it to determine the structure of a book?

We think very important. Another way of saying this is to say that Rule 2— the requirement that you state the unity of a book— cannot be effectively followed without obeying Rule 3— the requirement that you state the parts that make up that unity.

A very simple example will show what we mean. A two-year-old child, just having begun to talk, might say that “two plus two is four.” Objectively, this is a true statement; but we would be wrong to conclude from it that the child knew much mathematics. In fact, the child probably would not know what the statement meant, and so, although the statement by itself was adequate, we would have to say that the child still needed training in the subject. Similarly, you might be right in your guess about a book’s main theme or point, but you still need to go through the exercise of showing how and why you stated it as you did.

If these rules seem like they could also apply to writing, they can. “Writing and reading are reciprocal, as are teaching and being taught.” While the rules can work for both, the roles are not the same. Readers try to uncover the skeleton of the book. The author starts with the skeleton and covers it up, say, by putting meat around the bones.

Exercise:

Explain:

Readers try to uncover the skeleton of the book. The author starts with the skeleton and covers it up, say, by putting meat around the bones.

The fourth rule of analytical reading is to find out what the authors problems were.

The author of a book starts with a question or a set of questions. The book ostensibly contains the answer or answers. The writer may or may not tell you what the questions were as well as give you the answers that are the fruits of his work. Whether he does or does not, and especially if he does not, it is your task as a reader to formulate the questions as precisely as you can. You should be able to state the main question that the book tries to answer, and you should be able to state the subordinate questions if the main question is complex and has many parts.

This doesn’t mean you need to go into what the critics call, the intentional fallacy. That is, thinking that you can discover what the author was thinking as he wrote the book. Commonly this applies to literary works. An example of this would be trying to psychoanalyze Shakespeare from Hamlet. There is a big difference between trying to figure out what questions the author set out to answer and trying to determine what they were thinking at the time of writing.

The Intentional and Affective Fallacy 

by Whimsatt and Beardsley.

The Intentional and Affective Fallacy by Whimsatt and Beardsley

Wimsatt and Breadsley have made best-known accusations of fallacy found in literary criticism based on writer’s intention and reader's response. International fallacy is a kind of mistake of deriving meaning of the text in terms of author’s intention, feeling, emotion, attitude, biography and situation. It is the error of interpreting a literary work by reference to evidence according to the intention of the author.

International fallacy means the confusion between the poem and its origin. It is the fallacy because an author is not the part of the text; instead, text is public but not private. If a critic interprets text in terms of author’s biography, this interpretation is called subjective interpretation or criticism. But for Wimsatt and Beardsley criticism should be objective and textual, critic should not go beyond the text.

Author can't control the text as soon as he writes. It becomes public. The critic should not interpret the allusion in terms of author’s intention. They claim that author's intended meaning is irrelevant to the literary critic. The meaning, structure, value of text is inherent with in the work of art itself; it is an object with certain autonomy.

Affective fallacy means the confusion between the poem and its result. It is a way of deriving meaning of the text interims of affect of product up on the reader.

Affective fallacy is the error of evaluating a text by its effect. As a result of this fallacy, criticism ends in impressionism and relativism and objective criticism becomes almost impossible. Theories of catharsis, therapy, didacticism etc, fall under the affective fallacy because they judge the poem in terms of its effect on the reader.

Wimsatt and Breadsley view that text constitutes language. The meaning of test is public, not personal. The effect of the text varies from person to person and from reading to reading. Thus if the critic depends on the meaning produced by a single reader it will be a kind of mistake. As a text is an autonomous entity, the best way of deriving meaning is to analyze linguistics elements such as syntax, semantics etc, since the work of art has its own anthological status, and it should not be judged through the parameter outside the text.

Wimsatt and Brendsley criticize the tradition of expressive criticism as intentional fallacy and pragmatic criticism as affective fallacy. They believe that a work of literature or text has ontology of its own. It is not only an autonomous object but also complete in itself. So it has no need to take support of writer's intention and reader's affective response to assert its being. It can have its meaning with in itself, by its own structure. So its own being should be the subject of critical study.

Exercise:

Explain:

‘Whether he does or does not, and especially if he does not, it is your task as a reader to formulate the questions as precisely as you can. You should be able to state the main question that the book tries to answer

Question:

This doesn’t mean you need to go into what the critics call, the intentional fallacy’ why we should not go into the intentional fallacy?

Question: How "The Death of the Author" (French: La mort de l'auteur) is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes' essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author in an interpretation of a text, and instead argues that writing and creator are unrelated. The title is a pun on Le Morte d'Arthur (The Death of Arthur), a 15th-century compilation of smaller Arthurian legend stories, written by Sir Thomas Malory’’ are different from intentional fallacy’

How do you Find What a Book is About?

1.   Classify the book according to kind and subject matter.
2. State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity.
3. Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole.
4. Define the problem or problems the author is trying to solve.

Inspectional Reading

There are two types of inspectional reading: systematic skimming, also known as pre-reading or intelligent skimming, and superficial reading.

Intelligently Skimming

The first type of inspectional reading is systematic skimming, which you can easily put into practice today. Here’s how you start:

Read the cover and preface. Start with a quick read of the cover, publishers blurb, and the preface to get a feel for the scope of the work. This will not only prime your brain for what you might read in its entirety, but it will help you mentally place the book in a category.

Read the table of contents, which will give you a feel for the map of the book. Where is the book taking you? How are you getting There? It’s amazing how many people just dive in reading without even glancing at the table of contents and yet, the author spends considerable time coming up with the table of contents (as that’s the spine of the book). With non-fiction books you often can’t sell them without having a detailed table of contents.

Understand the language of the book. This means skimming the index. Not only will this give you an idea for the range of topics covered but it will also tell you the other people the book connects to and the jargon used in the book.

Identify the pivotal points. At this point, you have an overview of the jargon and the journey the author is taking you on. It should be relatively easy to identify the pivotal chapter to the argument. Dive into these reading bits and pieces. How are they structured? How connected is it to the rest of the book? Is this a place you want to end up? Turn the pages and dive in here and there with a few paragraphs or even pages.

Read the end. Authors generally do a good job summarizing their work in the last few pages. This where they sum up what they think is most important about their work.

Listen to an interview. While this has nothing to do with the actual book, interviews can be a great way to get the gist of a book in 30m or so. Authors do so much promotion now that its relatively easy to find interviews. And of course, they use the best examples from the book in these interviews.

Deciding to Read a Book

That’s how you intelligently skim a book. Once you get some practice, it should take at most, an hour.

Skimming helps you reach a decision point: Does this book deserve more of my time and attention? Why?

Unless you’re reading for entertainment, if you can’t answer that question, you can toss the book.

Mastering intelligent skimming will:

·         save you a lot of time because most books are not worth reading

·         offer knowledge of the book’s blueprint and contents so you know where to find stuff if you need it in the future

·         And improve retention, if you decide to read the book in its entirety because you’ve primed your brain with the contents.

 

 Syntopical Reading

This is also known as comparative reading, and it represents the most demanding and difficult reading of all. Syntopical Reading involves reading many books on the same subject and comparing and contrasting ideas, vocabulary, and arguments.

This task is undertaken by identifying relevant passages, translating the terminology, framing and ordering the questions that need answering, defining the issues, and having a conversation with the responses.

The goal is not to achieve an overall understanding of any particular book, but rather to understand the subject and develop a deep fluency.

This is all about identifying and filling in your knowledge gaps.

There are five steps to syntopical reading:

·         Finding the Relevant Passages — You need to find the right books and then the passages that are most relevant to filling your needs. So the first step is an inspectional reading of all the works that you have identified as relevant.

·         Bringing the Author to Terms — In analytical reading, you must identify the keywords and how they are used by the author. This is fairly straightforward. The process becomes more complicated now as each author has probably used different terms and concepts to frame their argument. Now the onus is on you to establish the terms. Rather than using the author’s language, you must use your own. In short, this is an exercise in translation and synthesis.

·         Getting the Questions Clear — Rather than focus on the problems the author is trying to solve, you need to focus on the questions that you want answered. Just as we must establish our own terminology, so too must we establish our own propositions by shedding light on our problems to which the authors provide answers. It’s important to frame the questions in such a way that all or most of the authors can be interpreted as providing answers. Sometimes we might not get an answer to our questions because they might not have been seen as questions by the authors.

·         Defining the Issues — If you’ve asked a clear question to which there are multiple answers then an issue has been defined. Opposing answers, now translated into your terms, must be ordered in relation to one another. Understanding multiple perspectives within an issue helps you form an intelligent opinion.

·         Analyzing the Discussion — It’s presumptuous to expect we’ll find a single unchallenged truth to any of our questions. Our answer is the conflict of opposing answers. The value is the discussion you have with these authors. You can now have an informed opinion.

Exercise:

Choose any issue and then find multiple answers to form an intelligent opinion.

Becoming a Demanding Reader

Reading is all about asking the right questions in the right order and seeking answers.

There are four main questions you need to ask of every book:

·         What is this book about?

·         What is being said in detail, and how?

·         Is this book true in whole or in part?

·         What of it?

The Art of Reading: How to be a Demanding Reader

In order to improve our reading, we need to learn to ask the right questions in the right order.

Don’t forget, reading a book, for any reason other than entertainment, is essentially an effort on your part to ask the book questions (and to answer them to the best of your ability).

There are four main questions you must ask about any book, found in How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading:

1. What is the book about as a whole? You must try to discover the leading theme of the book, and how the author develops this theme in an orderly way by subdividing it into its essential subordinate themes or topics.

2. What is being said in detail and how? You must try to discover the main ideas, assertions, and arguments that constitute the author’s particular message.

3. Is the book true, in whole or part? You cannot answer this question until you have answered the first two. You have to know what is being said before you can decide whether it is true or not. When you understand a book, however, you are obligated, if you are reading seriously, to make up your own mind. Knowing the author’s mind is not enough.

4. What of it? If the book has given you information, you must ask about its significance. Why does the author think it is important to know these things? Is it important to you to know them? And if the book has not only informed you, but also enlightened you, it is necessary to seek further enlightenment by asking

How to Make a Book Your Own

Asking a book questions as you read makes you a better reader. But you must do more. You must attempt to answer the questions you are asking. While you could do this in your mind, Adler argues that it’s much easier to do with a pencil in your hand. “The pencil,” he argues, “becomes the sign of your alertness while you read.”

When you buy a book, you establish a property right in it, just as you do in clothes or furniture when you buy and pay for them. But the act of purchase is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a book. Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it— which comes to the same thing— is by writing in it.

Why is marking a book indispensable to reading it? First, it keeps you awake— not merely conscious, but wide awake. Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tends to express itself in words, spoken or written. The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks. Third, writing your reactions down helps you to remember the thoughts of the author.

Exercise:

‘The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks’ Explain in your own words.

Reading a book should be a conversation between you and the author. Presumably he knows more about the subject than you do; if not, you probably should not be bothering with his book.

But understanding is a two-way operation; the learner has to question himself and question the teacher. He even has to be willing to argue with the teacher, once he understands what the teacher is saying. Marking a book is literally an expression of your differences or your agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.

Reading is like skiing. When done well, when done by an expert, both reading and skiing are graceful, harmonious activities. When done by a beginner, both are awkward, frustrating, and slow.