1. Critical Reading
Critical reading is a technique for discovering and evaluating information and ideas, and deciding what to accept and believe and what to reject.
Critical reading refers to a careful, active, reflective, analytic reading and involves reflecting on the validity of what has been read in light of prior knowledge and understanding.
Whereas comprehension is the process of deriving meaning and understanding of what was read, critical reading is the process of evaluating the meaning derived from the meaning; that is the validity and veracity of the information.

2. What is critical reading
It is reading actively with the goals of identifying arguments, weighing evidence, evaluating sources, looking for conflicts of interest, and questioning underlying assumptions.
It is distinctly different from the passive reading associated with reading novels, which many students mistakenly apply to academic texts. Regardless of discipline, critical reading is an important skill that will help students become more informed and, hopefully, more effective citizens.
Though it involves critiquing, critical reading is not just about critiquing.

3. Goals of Critical Reading
To recognize an author’s purpose           
To understand tone and convincing elements
To recognize strengths & weaknesses
To determine
How does this text work
How is it argued
How is the evidence used and interpreted
How does the text reach its conclusion

4. Why teach critical reading skills
According to Hudson (2007), critical reading skills are skills that will help students to be able to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate what is read. When teachers expose students to critical reading skills, they will also make students see the cause and effect or comparing relationships in the text, or adopting critical stance toward the text. In other words, when we teach critical reading skills to students we will develop them to be critical thinkers as well because when they do critical reading it will lead to critical thinking (critical reading will come first before critical thinking).
What is meant here, students need to have fully understood a text where they would analyze, synthesize, and evaluate it, then only they would think critically about the text – choose or reject the ideas put forward, agree or disagree with the issues, and most important of all they know the reason(s) why they do it.

5. Critical Reading
Critical reading is active reading. The reader must question, compare, and evaluate reading material.
Critical reading skills include:
Evaluating - detecting bias
Analyzing - differentiating between
Synthesizing facts v. opinions
Comparing - detecting logic
Critiquing

6. Reasons for Critical Reading
to determine the value of reading
to detect logic that is faulty on the part of the author,
to separate fact from opinion, and
to determine whether to accept the information being presented or reject it.

7. Critical Reading
Skilled readers can recognize an author’s point and the support for that point.
Critical readers not only recognize but can also evaluate an author’s support for a point and determine whether that support is solid or not.

8. Three categories of critical reading:
• Separating fact from opinion
• Detecting propaganda
• Recognizing errors in reasoning

9. CRITICAL READING: Separating Fact from Opinion

10. Fact vs Opinion
A fact is information that can be proved true through objective evidence: physical proof or the spoken or written testimony of witnesses.
An opinion is a belief, judgment, or conclusion that cannot be objectively proved true. As a result, it is open to question.

11. Here are some facts—they can be checked for accuracy and truth: Fact: The Quad Tower is the tallest building in this city. (A researcher could go out and, through inspection, confirm that the building is the tallest.) Fact: Albert Einstein willed his violin to his grandson. (This statement can be checked in historical publications or with Einstein’s estate.) Fact: On September 11, 2001, terrorists destroyed the New York World Trade Center, killing thousands. (This event was witnessed in person or on television by millions, and it’s in records worldwide.)

12. Here are some opinions: Opinion: The Quad Tower is the ugliest building in the city. (There’s no way to prove this statement because two people can look at the same building and come to different conclusions about its beauty. Ugly is a value word, a word we use to express a value judgment. Value or judgment words are signals that an opinion is being expressed.) Opinion: Einstein should have willed his violin to a museum. (Who says? Not his grandson. This is an opinion.) Opinion: The attack on the World Trade Center was the worst act of terrorism in the history of humankind. (Whether something is “worst” is always debatable. Worst is another value word.)

13. CRITICAL READING: Detecting Propaganda
Propaganda uses emotional appeals instead of presenting solid evidence to support a point.
Advertisers, salespeople, and politicians often lack adequate factual support for their points, so they appeal to our emotions by using propaganda techniques.
Part of being a critical reader is the ability to recognize and resist these propaganda techniques.

14. Six Common Propaganda Techniques
Bandwagon
Testimonial
Transfer
Plain Folks
Name Calling
Glittering Generalities

15. 1. Bandwagon
The bandwagon technique tells us to buy a product or support a certain issue because “everybody else is doing it.”
• A TV commercial may claim that more and more people are watching the evening news with a certain anchorperson.
• A cell phone ad may show people in many different kinds of occupations using a certain cell phone.
• A political ad may feature people from all walks of life speaking out in support of a certain candidate.
The ads imply that if you don’t jump on the bandwagon, the parade will pass you by.

16. 2. Testimonial
The testimonial approach tells us to buy a product or support a certain issue because a celebrity is endorsing it.
The idea behind this technique is that the testimony of someone we admire will influence us.
• Famous athletes appear as spokespersons for all sorts of products, from soft drinks to automobiles.
• Movie and TV stars make commercials endorsing products and political issues.
Remember, though, that famous people get paid to endorse products. Also, they are not necessarily experts about the products or issues they promote.

17. 3. Transfer
In transfer, the most common type of propaganda technique, products or candidates try to associate themselves with something that people admire or love.
A political candidate holds a sign saying “Vote for Me” and stands next to a beauty queen wrapped in a Jamaican flag.
A beautiful, sexy woman is used to promote a product, candidate, or cause.

18. Transfer (cont’d)
The idea behind this technique is that we will transfer the positive feelings we have for a beautiful, sexy-looking person or our country to the product or candidate.
Over the years, advertisers have found that beauty and sex “sell” and that appeals to patriotism often succeed.

19. 4. Plain Folks
In the plain folks technique, people present themselves as ordinary, average citizens, hoping we will identify with them and like them.
Political candidates try to show they are just “plain folks” by talking about hard times in their lives. They also pose for photographs while wearing a hard hat or mingling with everyday people.
The presidents of some companies appear in their own ads, trying to show that their giant corporations are just family businesses run by ordinary folks.

20. 5. Name Calling
Name calling is the use of emotionally loaded language or negative comments to turn people against a rival product, candidate, or movement.
A political candidate labels an opponent “soft,” radical,” or “wimpy.”
In a taste test, consumers describe the other leading brand of spaghetti sauce as “too salty” and “thin and tasteless.”

21. 6. Glittering Generalities
A glittering generality is an important-sounding but unspecific claim about some product, candidate, or cause.
• An ad calls a certain television set “simply the best.”
• A campaign slogan claims that the person running for office is “the right candidate for our city.”
But no specific evidence is offered to support the claim. Words like best and right sound good, but they say nothing definite.

22. CRITICAL READING: Recognizing Errors in Reasoning
Fallacies are errors in reasoning that take the place of the real support needed in an argument.
• A valid point is based on a rock-like foundation of solid support.
• A fallacious point is based on a house of cards that offers no real support at all.

23. Two common fallacies:
Changing the subject distracts us from the issue by presenting irrelevant support that actually has nothing to do with the argument.
Hasty generalization is a fallacy in which a point has inadequate support. Drawing a conclusion on the basis of insufficient evidence is the same as making a hasty generalization.

24. Six Other Common Fallacies
Three Fallacies That Ignore the Issue
• Circular Reasoning
• Personal Attack
• Straw Man
Three Fallacies that Oversimplify the Issue
• False Cause
• False Comparison
• Either-Or

25. Three Fallacies That Ignore the Issue
• Circular reasoning repeats the point instead of giving evidence for it.
Mr. Green is a great teacher because he is so wonderful at teaching.
• Personal attack ignores the issue and concentrates instead on the character of the opponent.
Senator Brill’s opinions on public housing are worthless. He can’t even manage to hold his own household together—he’s been married and divorced three times.
• Straw man falsely claims that an opponent holds an extreme position and then opposes that position.
Ms. Collins opposes capital punishment. But letting murderers out on the street to kill again is a crazy idea. If we did that, no one would be safe.

26. Three Fallacies That Oversimplify the Issue
• False cause assumes that because event A came before event B, event A caused event B.
The Macklin Company was more prosperous before Ms. Williams became president. Clearly, she is the cause of the decline.
• False comparison assumes that two things being compared are more alike than they really are.
It didn’t hurt your grandfather to get to work without a car, and it won’t hurt you either.
• Either-or assumes that there are only two sides to a question.
People who oppose unrestricted free speech are really in favor of censorship.