Student's Question of the Week
Q: How can I learn more about critical reading?
A: A natural process seems to take place as you read, and try to assimilate the message by putting it in your own words; next, you might write about it from a certain point of view, thus provoking some higher order pondering. There is a sequenced strategy for this called REAP, the letters of which stand for Read, Encode, Annotate and Ponder.
One of the benefits of this strategy is it provides practice in all the levels of cognition, according to Bloom. It helps to develop critical thinking skills because it teaches the reader how to think using a "lens", which might be a principle, ie. justice, and to annotate from a certain point of view with a specific purpose. It also helps to deepen the inner dialogue mentioned in the last question.
Click here to go to a full description of the REAP strategy for analytical reading, adapted for Gyrus by Gerry Lewin and Mark Ferrer, with permission from the authors.