Active and critical reading comes somewhat naturally to me. Annotations on the first read of anything I annotate is typically my immediate reaction. I do not like taking things at face value. I would like to think I take the skeptical point of view when it comes to any claim. If there’s a claim that I do not believe, I will ask questions. If not, I will state that I do not agree or that I am skeptical. In those instances, I do try to find the reasons why a particular claim does not seem right to me. For example, my annotations of Jonah Lehrer’s essay “The Future of Science… Is Art?” (Blog 8), I have a few instances where I write things like “not sure about that one” or I would agree with a qualifier where I would write something like “yes, but…” With these things, I agree with Susan Gilroy in “Interrogating Texts: 6 Reading Habits to Develop in Your First Year at Harvard” when she writes, “Mark up the margins of your text with words and phrases: ideas that occur to you, notes about things that seem important to you.” However I disagree with Gilroy with the continuation of that quotation: “reminders of how issues in a text may connect with class discussion or course themes.”
My disagreement with Gilroy there because I think it is limiting. Thinking of a text in broader context, I think, is more beneficial and will secondarily lead to ideas that complement the course. For example, in class context, Lehrer’s work is to help us develop a claim for where the arts belong in the sciences, if they belong at all. Without thinking of this in class context, one of my takeaways from Lehrer I noted in my Blog 8 is easily applied: “Science is supposed to be objective. If we add the subjectivity of art into science, what is then truly true.” I go on a little more with how Lehrer’s argument may apply to the real world. Informal responses to readings help develop those immediate reactions I have so that they are more coherent. I believe this development is important as an end to understanding the views of an author and coming to one’s own conclusion.
