Assignment: A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another; Have new eyes; Figuring out what is being asked not what is being said.
For the department of
English and Media studies.
By Prof DR Sohail Ansari
Dead
line: 21 April
(The assignments are in
compliance to instruction from higher authorities so that learning remains
uninterrupted despite the closure of university)
(This assignment is 7th of the series of assignments
calculated to initiate students into the art of reading)
And when you
see those who engage in [offensive] discourse concerning Our verses, then turn
away from them until they enter into another conversation. And if Satan should
cause you to forget, then do not remain after the reminder with the wrongdoing
people. [Quran, 6:68]
Creative
Reading
CREATIVE READING IS DEFINED AS READING FOR
IMPLIED
AND INFERRED MEANINGS,
APPRECIATIVE
REACTIONS, AND
CRITICAL
EVALUATION. THE ACT OF
CRITICAL READING GOES BEYOND LITERAL COMPREHENSION TO DEMAND THAT
THE READER PRODUCE FRESH, ORIGINAL IDEAS NOT EXPLICITLY STATED IN THE READING MATERIAL.
Creative
Comprehension
The creative level of comprehension requires
students to use the highest level of skills. They will read, think, and make
decisions in relation to text.
For example: After determining the accuracy of the climate
change article, students may then debate what steps to take using the
information given.
Should the government intervene?
Who is responsible for making changes?
How can this be accomplished?
At this level, students use their understanding of a topic and
think creatively about how to use and apply information to their lives or the
real world
.
What are the aim of creative
reading?
Its aim is
to stimulate students to think of reading as a creative process,
and of research writing as itself a form of creative reading.
Creativity in academic writing
A book is a heart that only
beats in the chest of another.
The
study also found that reading fiction improves one’s ability to put yourself
in another person’s shoes. Which is an act of imagination called empathy. When
you put yourself mentally in a character’s shoes and imagine what life must be
like for them, suddenly your world has become bigger. And so your brain biology
and your empathy skills benefit from reading.
“The object we call a book is not the real book, but its potential,
like a musical score or seed. It exists fully only in the act of being read. And its real home is inside the head of the reader, where the symphony
resounds and the seed germinates. A book is a heart that only beats in the
chest of another.”
– Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby
– Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby
Imagination
has got mankind where it is today. Our technological progress is a direct
result of people who have imagined bigger and better solutions to common
problems. People have imagined and created novel inventions and discoveries.
From
rockets that can pierce the skies to the Velcro that you use to fasten your
sneakers, each invention was born from someones imagination.
Just imagine, without
human imagination, we would probably still be living in caves.
We would have no internet, no trains or cars, no kettles to boil water, no taps
to turn on for water. Can
you imagine that?
Thing is, imagination is the key
to human progress and imagination is a function of our brain. When a
creative person writes down their ideas for us to read, that reading improves
our imagination and makes us more creative too.
Exercise:
Pick any book. Make
your world bigger by putting yourself in character’s shoes. Tell what life must
be like for him or her.
Every writer is not a
creative writer; hence every writing does not improve our imagination and makes
us more creative. Select any creative writer and read ideas he has written for
us and tell how these ideas improve your imagination.
Reading Makes You More
Creative
If you
want more proof that reading helps creativity, look no further than the world
famous entrepreneur Elon Musk. Musk is a modern-day example of an avid reader
who has come up with creative solutions to a number of problems facing modern
society.
You can be
sure that reading all those books and employing his imagination is how reading
helped develop his creativity and sowed the seeds for the four diverse tech
companies that Musk heads today.
So reading uses your
imagination. Through
using your imagination, reading makes you more creative and innovative. Try
some reading today.
The researchers found that
regular reading enhances brain connectivity and improves brain function. In
fact brain activity varied with the peaks and troughs of the story, giving
credence to the saying “reading exercises the brain”.
We keep reading because the writer has managed to engage our
imagination. In short, reading has stimulated our
imagination to create a new world in our mind.
Exercise:
How reading creates a new world in our
mind?
Creativity
If you were an explorer
you would learn about the world and its diversity through direct experience.
You would walk narrow alleys in foreign countries, sail the great seas, scale
great desert sand dunes or sip mint tea in a Middle Eastern courtyard.
This
exploration would broaden your mind, develop your imagination and boost
creativity and change your worldview forever. If you could ‘see’ these places or
imagine what it would feel like, that is your
imagination working.
But (unfortunately) we
can’t all take to the high road and disappear into the sunset for these
experiences.
But we can discover new
worlds through reading books. Reading a book uses the imagination and this in
turn develops our creativity.
Of course, the key to developing your imagination when reading a
book, is the level of interest you have in the content. The more you are
totally absorbed in a book, the more it will stimulate your imagination and
help your creativity.
“Imagination is more
important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and
understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.”
– Albert Einstein
– Albert Einstein
Exercise:
How can we discover new worlds through reading books?
The Travel
Narrative
Jennifer Schulz
Marcel Proust writes:
"The real voyage of
discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
So we must have new eyes, to
discover and create our own journeys and narratives while we read about others'
(and each others') discoveries.
Exercise:
Create you our own travel
narratives to understand how the process of writing can uncover and draw
connections between your our internal and external landscapes.
It's
Amazing What You'll Discover Through New Eyes
You really don't have to go all that far on your voyage of
discovery to find something new. You just need to have new eyes.
Award Winning Author,
Keynote Speaker, Mentor - Thought Leader
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes."
-- Marcel Proust
-- Marcel Proust
Just like Christopher Columbus or Marco Polo, I believe each of
us came to this planet hardwired to explore, to push out, to grow and to evolve
-- to discover new parts of ourselves and our world we have not seen before.
While visiting the J. Paul Getty Museum, perched high on a hill overlooking Los
Angeles, I had a demonstration of how, sometimes, we tend to overcomplicate the
process of new discovery. Pushing out and growing doesn't always mean getting
into a Land Rover and seeking new terrain or a sailing vessel searching for new
land or flying on a rocket ship exploring outer space. Sometimes the greatest
discoveries are made by exploring inner space, in the cracks and crevices of
our belief system, which has everything to do with how we perceive ourselves
and our world. In other words, new discovery is also an inside job that
invites us to see our lives and our world, right where we are, from a new
perspective.
While strolling the grounds of the new Getty, which has only
been there since 1997, I happened upon the setting for what would become a
Kodak moment photograph. Standing on an elevated plateau off the backside of
the museum, I was moved first by the beauty of the lush and open landscape, and
then my eye was drawn to the most unusual ultramodern red-metal sculpture.
After I snapped a photograph, I stood there staring at this very unique work of
art, trying to interpret what the artist who created it was saying. I got
nothing! About five minutes later, my gazed softened and lifted to the horizon
behind the sculpture, and I was captivated by the tall buildings several miles
off in the city of Los Angeles, which have been there for many years -- I knew
the buildings in that area well, because I had driven by them many times. I had
just never seen them from this elevated perspective. It was a breathtaking
moment -- it gave me a new appreciation for "old" Los Angeles, a
place I have known for more than a half century, but have seldom seen this
beautiful. Perhaps the artist placed the sculpture in that very spot just
for me to have my own personal epiphany. As Marcel Proust infers, we don't
really have to discover new landscapes to be in the creative process of
discovery, sometimes we simply need to change our perspective, to elevate it
and see what we already know so well through new eyes.
This is a metaphor that is
applicable to just about every area of our life when we stop and consider it.
Sometimes it's easy to become stale, bored, jaded or shortsighted in how we see
our lives, our relationships, our physical bodies, our jobs, the home in which
we live, the community in which we live, the country in which we live and even
the car we drive. When we start taking these things for granted because we are
so near to them, we fail to see the precious role they play in the big picture
of our daily lives. At those times, it may be tempting to seek new landscapes,
that is, to look elsewhere for our inspiration, fulfillment and contentment.
Perhaps what we need is not a new relationship, job, home, community or car. Perhaps
what is need is a new perspective, to see what lies before us with new eyes.
If this metaphor resonates with you, I invite
you to consider the fact that if you have eyes to see this article on your
computer screen (let alone the meaning of the aforementioned metaphor) you are
very blessed. If you have a relationship in which you find peace, love and
companionship, you are very blessed. The same can be said about your job,
physical well-being, home, community, country, car and so on. The practice is to
remember that to discover new things about yourself, your life and your world,
you don't always have to seek new landscapes. Just lift your perspective a bit,
and see the beauty and blessings that already lie in front you through new
eyes. Then feel the gratitude well up from within.
If you have not experienced the Getty Museum, the next time you visit the Los
Angeles area I encourage you make a point to see it with your own eyes. It may
change your perspective about a few things as it did mine. Perhaps the artist
who created and placed that sculpture where he or she did, did so with great
intention. Perhaps he or she knew it wasn't just about the unique sculpture
alone. Perhaps the artist intended to use the backdrop of a much bigger picture
as part of his or her creation -- naturally drawing the viewer's eye to the
horizon, where every person will see what is theirs to see. As Thoreau wrote, "It's
not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."
Given this perspective, what you see when you look at your
life and your world truly is a work of art. You really don't have to go all
that far on your voyage of discovery to find something new. You just need to
have new eyes.
Exercise:
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you
see."
Dennis Merritt Jones quote Thoreau
in a different context but what Thoreau says applies to reading as well.
We cannot really see if we look
into a book without being well equipped for reading. Discuss
Or you see what you want to see:
"Orientalism” is a way of
seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab
peoples and cultures as compared to that of Europe and the U.S. It often
involves seeing Arab culture as exotic, backward, uncivilized, and at times
dangerous. Discuss.
‘Sometimes we simply need to change our
perspective, to elevate it and see what we already know so well through new
eyes’.
Syed
Abul A'la Maududi once said that The Quran
changed his perspective, to elevate it and see what he already knew from new
eyes.
Question: Can you mention any book
that changed your perspective?
‘Perhaps what is need is a new
perspective, to see what lies before us with new eyes’.
Question: Why we need a
new perspective? Every old thing is not always bad. Discuss.
Why Analytical Reading Is a Must-Have Skill
Leslie
O'Flahavan
Analytical
reading is a high-level cognitive skill. It’s important brain work!
In
customer service, analytical reading refers to an agent’s ability to read the
customer’s email and figure out what the customer is asking, not
simply what the customer is saying.
This
is the crux of analytical reading versus what could be called surface reading.
Here’s
an example of analytical reading in action. The customer, Karen, emailed ABC
Waste Disposal, the company that picks up her trash:
Dear ABC Waste Disposal,
I have a small, broken bookcase
that I need picked up. I was also wondering if there was any way that we could
get the larger recycling container? I have one of the small open boxes, but we
fill it up too fast.
Thank you!
Karen
Blume
An
analytical reading of this email generates a list of five questions the
customer is asking, both explicitly and implicitly:
- Will you pick up my broken bookcase?
- If so, is there an additional charge?
- How do I arrange for you to pick up my
broken bookcase?
- Can I have a larger recycling container?
- If so, do I need to do anything special to
request it?
Analytical
reading prepares an agent to provide all the information needed for the desired
outcomes (picking up the bookcase and getting a larger recycling container),
even if the customer didn’t know to ask the questions.
What happens when agents fail to read analytically?
Bad emails happen, that’s what.
And many more emails than necessary happen because customers must send
follow-up queries to get the answers they needed from the beginning.
Here’s the surface reading reply
from ABC Waste Disposal to customer Karen:
Dear Karen,
We would be happy to assist you
with a bulk pickup for your bookcase. If it weighs more than 50 lbs., please
break it into two pieces for pickup. With your monthly service plan, there is
no additional fee for one bulk pickup per month. Larger recycling containers
are available, but they are not included in your monthly service plan.
Sincerely,
Howard Berg, Customer Service Agent - ABC Waste Disposal
Analytical reading would have
yielded a better email from Howard. When agents read analytically, they commit
to listing the customer’s questions before they write their reply. Agents who
are skilled at analytical reading can do this automatically. Agents who
struggle with this skill should list the customer’s questions in writing before
they craft a reply.
Karen had five questions implied
in her short, three-sentence email. Analytical reading by Howard would have led
to a full response, like this one:
Dear Karen,
Yes, we would be glad pick up
your bookcase. If it weighs more than 50 lbs., please break it into two pieces
for pick-up. You can schedule the bulk pickup online or call
us at 800-111-2222 to schedule it.
With your monthly service plan,
there is no additional fee for one bulk pickup per month. I have reviewed your
account, and I see that you have not scheduled a bulk pickup since August 2017,
so there would be no charge for picking up the bookcase.
Larger recycling containers are
available, but they are not included in your monthly service plan. There’s a
monthly charge of $1.19 for the larger container. Please reply to this email
and let me know whether you would like me to add the larger container to your
account. We’ll deliver it to you within one week.
Sincerely,
Howard Berg, Customer Service Agent - ABC Waste Disposal
Why is analytical reading so
difficult?
Nearly
all the conditions conspire against analytical reading, a cognitive task that
requires focus.
Foundations of Analytical Reading
Kristin Conley, Monica Frees, and David McCall
Why
is academic reading beneficial?
Information comes from reputable
sources:
Web
sites and blogs can be a source of insight and information, but not all are
useful as academic resources. They may be written by people or companies whose
main purpose is to share an opinion or sell you something. Academic sources
such as textbooks and scholarly journal articles, on the other hand, are
usually written by experts in the field and have to pass stringent peer review
requirements in order to get published.
Exposure to different
viewpoints:
One purpose of assigned academic readings is
to give students exposure to different viewpoints and ideas. For example, in an
ethics class, you might be asked to read a series of articles written by
medical professionals and religious leaders who are pro-life or pro-choice and
consider the validity of their arguments. Such experience can help you wrestle
with ideas and beliefs in new ways and develop a better understanding of how
others’ views differ from your own.
Various Pre-reading
Strategies to Use KWL
This
exercise is meant to help students think about what they know about the text
before they start to read the information.
K
– What you know about the subject or text When a student thinks about the
subject before reading it activates the brain to search for any information
already known about the subject or text.
W
– What do you want to know about the subject or text Ask yourself various
questions about what you want to know or what type of information should you
know about this text after you are finished reading. Some questions may be
basic and others may explore deeper into a topic. Start by reading the title
and see if you can formulate any questions.
L – After reading the information, what did
you learn about the subject or text?
Take
a moment after each section of the text and reflect on what you read and what
you learned. It does not have to be a long process but simply recall what you
previously read. If you can take a moment and explain what you read to someone
then you should understand the information more fully.
Analyze:
Identify parts of the reading, including:
The
context in which text was written; the audience for whom the text is intended;
the purpose of the text; what rhetorical strategies the writer uses; the genre
reflected by the text; the stance the writer takes toward the subject; the
tools the writer uses to develop support; and the overall thesis of the essay.
An
analysis is about what the text does, rhetorically speaking.
Context:
This
essay is a contribution to a larger discussion or debate about what? What
events or ideas prompted the author to write this essay?
Audience:
Who
is likely to read this essay? Where was it originally published, and what type
of publication is/was it? Who can access this language?
Purpose:
To entertain? To persuade? To congratulate? To
instruct? To warn? To scold? To inform or explain? Some combination of these?
• Rhetorical
strategies:
Chronological
narrative? Analyzing cause and/or effect? Arguing? Comparing and/or
contrasting? Making analogies? Classifying and/or dividing? Describing?
Defining? Explaining a process? Dialogue? Some combination of these?
Genre:
Formal
argument? Analysis of some other text(s)? Evaluation? Memoir? Profile?
Proposal? Reflection? Letter?
• Stance:
Resigned?
Antagonistic? Humorous? Assured? Happy? Confident? Sympathetic? Urgent?
Encouraging? Frustrated? Energetic? Pleading? Detached? Ambivalent? Apathetic?
Clinical? Amused? Smug? Humorous? Sarcastic? Questioning? Some combination?
• Tools:
Evidence
such as expert testimony, quoting authorities, using facts, figures, and statistics,
or direct quotations? Examples such as allusions to public knowledge,
well-known anecdotes or personal experience, graphic illustrations, fictional
scenarios, colorful and descriptive imagery, or figures of speech? Appeals to
Logic, character, emotion, need, or value, or the inadvertent or deliberate use
of logical fallacies? Design elements such as subheadings and sidebars?
Persuasive elements such as concessions to the opposition or qualifiers to
one’s own position?
Thesis:
The
one or two sentences that best summarize the point of the essay. Sometimes the
point is implied instead of overtly stated. Note that tone usually changes as
the text unfolds, and you see it in specific word choice, which you should note
in your analysis. Also, if you identify logical fallacies as tools, you should
criticize the essay for its logical flaws in paragraph
Exercise:
Choose
any one or many different articles and analyze its or their passages for
identify above mentioned parts of the reading
Respond:
Give
a personal response to the reading. What ideas do you find interesting? Why?
Even if you don’t like the essay, you should still be able to find something
interesting about it. Do you agree with the author’s “message”? You can also
evaluate and/or challenge the essay in this paragraph. Is the author’s purpose
achieved? How well does the author prove her/his argument? What could someone
on the other side of this argument say, and how valid would that criticism be?
What flaws in logic do you see in the author’s argument? You should use present
tense verbs in this section, and you may also speak from the first person,
using "I" as you write your response.
Read below the response
of one student
A
Student Mrs. Johnson
23
September 2015
“The Culture of
American Film”
In “The Culture of American Film,” Julia
Newman argues that analyzing movies for “cultural significance” can lead to
greater understanding of changes in our society.
This
essay was written in the context of a growing movement in academia toward
viewing popular films as literature and analyzing movies as cultural text.
Newman’s
intended audience is probably university-level
scholars, but her ideas are accessible to anyone interested in examining
film as it suggests underlying societal structures. One purpose of this essay
is to explain how to view films as indications of what’s going on in our
society, but Newman also wants to persuade the reader that there’s more to
movies than just entertainment. The organizational form of the essay is classification,
as Newman places movies into categories of those that do reflect changes in our
society and those that do not, then she compares and contrasts these
categories. In addition, the essay employs a chronological organizational form
in which Newman describes the plots of various movies from 50 years ago to the
present. The tone of the essay is consistently encouraging and knowledgeable.
There’s a sort of majestic tone to the introduction, too, as Newman pronounces
that the “significance of storytelling has diminished over the decades, and
cinema has risen to take its place”. Tools Newman uses to accomplish her
purpose include specific examples of film analyses, an impressive balance
between academic and accessible word choices, and concessions to the opposition,
like when she writes, “However, it is easy to overstate these connections”.
“But as cinematic forms of storytelling overtake written forms of expression,
the study of movies as complex text bearing cultural messages and values is
becoming more and more important.” In other words, we can learn a lot about
structural shifts within our culture through studying popular film as literary
text. I found the ideas in this essay quite compelling. The essay makes me want
to examine the movies of ten or twenty years ago to consider what they
suggested about our society then. The essay also makes me think about films
that have been nominated for Academy Awards this year, like The Artist, and
what the popularity of this silent movie says about changes taking place in our
culture right now. I do wish Newman had used more current examples; most of her
examples are so old that I’ve never seen them. I also wonder how much knowledge
of history is necessary to really apply her thesis. . . . I don’t think I’ll
ever have a strong enough understanding of American history to apply Newman’s
ideas to movies that have been popular in the past, and I can’t imagine trying
to examine currently popular movies for what they suggest about cultural shifts
that are happening right now. It seems like the type of analysis she encourages
is only possible in retrospect and with a strong understanding of movements in
American history. Source:
https://www.oercommons.org/authoring/12940-summary-analysis-response-a-functionalapproach-to/view
Exercise:
Choose any article and respond
Main Ideas & Supporting Details
Main
Ideas
An effective argument contains a thesis or
main idea, supporting claims, and evidence to support those claims. The thesis
is the writer’s central argument, or claim, and the supporting claims reinforce
the validity of the thesis. When reading another writer’s argument, it is
important to be able to distinguish between the main point(s) and sub-claims;
being able to recognize the difference between the two will prove incredibly
useful when composing your own thesis-driven essays.
As you may know, a writer’s thesis articulates
the direction he or she will take with his or her argument. For example, let’s
say that my thesis is as follows:
“Smoking should be
banned on campus because of its health and environmental repercussions.”
At
least two things are clear from this statement:
My
central claim is that smoking should be banned on campus, and I will move from
discussing the health impact of allowing smoking on campus to covering the
environmental impact of allowing smoking on campus.
These
latter two ideas (the health and the environmental repercussions of allowing
smoking on campus) are the author’s main points, which function as support for
the author’s central claim (thesis), and they will likely comprise one or more
body paragraphs of the writer’s thesis-driven essay.
Think
about it this way: every time a writer presents a claim, the reader likely
asks, “What support do you have for that claim?”
Supporting
Details
What do a table, tripod, and house all have in
common?
Supporting
details are examples of proof that hold up the theme, or main idea, of a
writing. You can identify the theme of a story or passage by determining what
major topic is being addressed in what you are reading.
Supporting
details can include examples of the author’s point, reasons the author gives to
back up their point, or proof that the point the author is trying to make is
valid. It is important to be able to identify the theme of something you are
reading so that you can know, understand, and obtain information from what you
read. Supporting details play a big role in making the author’s point valid and
believable; and they allow you to discern the strength of an author’s argument.
Source: https://www.oercommons.org/authoring/14494-identifying-themes-and-supporting-details-inwriti/view
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