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the difference between flawed impressionistic reading and disciplined close reading,
between flashy writing and substantial
writing, between undisciplined uncritical
thinking and disciplined critical thinking.
Educated persons understand the
important difference between writing that is
merely fluent (but says nothing worth
saying) and writing that is substantial (that
says something important). They realize, in
other words, the difference between "style"
and "substance."
To read and write with skill and insight,
students need to understand the basic theory
behind close reading, substantive writing,
and critical thinking. And that theory is
simple at its roots. Most of all, students need
to be engaged in activities that connect
reading, writing, and thinking to the
acquisition of knowledge. They need to learn
how to digest what they read, internalize
"content," read-write-think ideas into their
minds.
Note: For further reading see The Thinker's Guide to the Foundations of Analytic Thinking (2006); The Thinker's Guide to
How to Write a Paragraph and Beyond: The Art of Close Reading (2003); and A Guide for Educators to Critical Thinking
Competency Standards (2005) by Linda Elder and Richard Paul, Dillon Beach, CA: Foundation For Critical
Thinking, www.criticalthinking.org.
290, Gifted Education International
they read.
Students give examples, from their
experience, of ideas in texts.
Students connect the core ideas in a text
to other core ideas they understand.
Students take the core ideas they obtain
through reading and apply them to their
lives.
Students accurately paraphrase what
they read (e.g. sentence by sentence).
Students accurately and logically
explicate the thesis of a paragraph:
First, students state the main point of the
paragraph in one or two sentences.
Second, students elaborate what they
have paraphrased. In other words, ...
Third, students give examples of the
meaning by tying it to concrete situations
in the real world. For example, ...
Fourth,
students
generate
apt
illustrations: metaphors, analogies,
pictures, or diagrams of the basic thesis
to connect the thesis to other meanings
they already understand.
Students analyze the logic of what they
read (its purpose, its main question, the
information it contains, its main idea).
Students evaluate what they read (for
clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance,
depth, breadth, logic, and significance).
Students accurately role-play an author's
viewpoint, as presented in a text.
Outcomes include:
Students reflect as they write.
Students monitor how they are writing
as they are writing-distinguishing
between what they understand in the
text and what they do not understand.
Students accurately summarize (in their
words) texts they read, or ideas they
hear.
Students routinely give examples from
their experience as they write, to
exemplify important ideas.
Students explicitly connect core ideas to
other core ideas as they write.
Students write about ideas that apply to
their lives.
Students demonstrate the ability to
explicate in writing the thesis they are
developing or defending:
They state the main point of what they
are saying.
They elaborate their main point.
They give examples of what they mean.
They create analogies and metaphors
that help readers understand what they
mean.
Students demonstrate the ability to
Volume 25 No 3, 2009, 291
First Level
The first level of ability is that of accurately
translating an author's wording into your
own. In other words, you put the words and
thoughts of the author into your words. Your
paraphrase is successful only to the extent
that your words capture the essential
meaning of the original text. It is successful
only if the reformulation of the text opens
up, or at least begins to open up, the meaning
of the original.
Hence, if you read the following in a text:
"democracy is rule by the people," your
paraphrase of it might read, "Democracy
exists only to the extent that there is a broad
basis of equality of political power among
the people at large. This means that all
292, Gifted Education International
Second Level
The second level of proficiency is the ability
to state, elaborate, exemplify, and illustrate
the thesis of a paragraph. Consider the four
questions that can be used to assess writing
for clarity:
Could you state your basic point in one
simple sentence?
Could you elaborate your basic point
more fully (in other words)?
Could you give me an example of your
point from your experience?
Could you give me an analogy or
metaphor to help me see what you
mean?
Each of these clarification strategies requires
substantive writing skills.
Third Level
The third level of proficiency is the ability to
deconstruct (analyze) a text into the
components that document the "logic" of the
text. It enables the reader to explain the
system that underlies the text. Insightful
readers look for these components in making
sense of a text. Insightful writers explain
these components in their writing. It is
important that students understand these
components as interrelated and non-linear in
Conclusion
When students learn the interrelated,
dynamic relationship between critical
thinking, close reading, and substantive
writing; when they are deeply practiced in
these skill sets; they possess intellectual
abilities and dispositions that are the
hallmark of the educated mind. They display
intellectual empathy and fair-mindedness.
They persevere through complexities in
reading and writing. They closely analyze
and carefully assess what they are reading,
what they are writing, what they are
thinking. They distinguish what they know
from what they do not know, what they
understand from what they do not
understand. They replace faulty beliefs with
sounder ones. They look increasingly like
the persons that John Henry Newman (1852,
The Idea of a University), described more
than a hundred and fifty years ago:
It is education which gives a man a clear
conscious view of his own opinions and
judgments, a truth in developing them, an
eloquence in expressing them, and a force in
urging them. It teaches him to see things as
they are, to go right to the point, to
disentangle a skein of thought, to detect
what is sophistical, and to discard what is
irrelevant. It prepares him to master any
subject with facility.