Reading Style

As we will be reading scholarly books/articles related to a subject area of interest to you within the realm of the Gothic, your goals should range between: reading for content, method, and craft.

Each of these ways of reading enhances learning in different ways. For instance:

a.) grasping the larger, more abstract ideas presented in an author's claims, arguments, and/or depictions (reading for content)

• Reading for content, allows us to gain a working knowledge of a particular body of scholarship, theory, history, ideas, etc. We use this knowledge to inform our own ways of thinking and seeing and can apply it to craft our own unique persuasive arguments.

b.) identifying the method in which research and/or analysis was conducted to craft the text (reading for method);

• When we read for method, we gain a deeper sense of how to research within a particular tradition of inquiry. We learn what kinds of questions to ask, what kinds of places to investigate, what kinds of objects to study, and what kinds of constraints are placed upon us by the philosophies and theories underlying a particular methodology. We gain a sense of how to collect, organize, synthesize, and interpret data. We learn what it means to do, in other words, postcolonial analysis, visual rhetorical analysis, deconstruction, actor-network theory, etc.

c.) determining how an author achieves his or her own rhetorical goals (reading for craft).

• When we read rhetorically (for craft), we develop a deeper understanding of how authors composing in similar genres (scholarly books, articles, anthology chapters) and in similar rhetorical situations attempt to achieve their own rhetorical goals. With this knowledge, we can improve our own composing when working in similar genres and rhetorical situations.

Throughout this semester, I challenge you to practice reading on each these levels. This means that in addition to reading for content, you will also be challenged to read for method and craft.

Developing this reading style entails learning how to ask questions that require reflection about content, method, and rhetoric (the art of persuasion). Below you will find a list of questions that encourage reading on multiple levels. This this list models the types of questions you might ask of a text/author--questions that evoke critical attention to content, method, and craft.

Notice how in some questions, the writer is inquiring into the author's big ideas (reading for content). In other cases, the writer questions the author's motives for trying to accomplish a specific rhetorical goal (reading for craft). At other times, the writer explores how the author conducts research, locates evidence, and engages in analysis (reading for method).

Asking Productive Self-Generated Questions

Based on Reading Assignment #3--Edward Said's Orientalism
Reading for Content

• How would you define Orientalism and explain it in your own words to the class? 
• What are the instruments of Orientalism that Said discusses, which you think are most important to constructing this discourse of knowledge?
• What are the important consequences of Orientalism that we need to be aware of? 

Reading for Method

• In terms of method, what research process do you imagine Said engaging in that lead to the development of Orientalism? 
• What does Said, in other words, teach us about what it means to do postcolonial study? 
• What limitations do you seen in what it means to do this kind of postcolonial study?

Reading for Craft

• What rhetorical strategies do you think are particularly effective in helping Said reach his purpose in writing this Chapter? 
• How does he present evidence for his claims in a persuasive manner? 
• What could he have done to be even more persuasive? 

*adopted from Laurie Gries's Summer 2014 Independent Study Wikipage.