#they're too busy filling english classes up with shit that should have been in social sciences and civics. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tozettastone · 7 months

Text

Close reading is such an underrated skill.

I know it hasn't been really taught as a general skill in primary or secondary schools in many decades, and of course it shouldn't be the only tool in your toolbox. But the closest most kids (here, at least) ever come to close reading in high school is still a few weeks of looking at newspaper clippings for persuasive techniques and desultory attempts to ape them in essays.

But in real life I am frequently presented with art or media without much further context. It's on a book shelf. It's an ad. It's streaming on a service. It's in my YouTube recommendations. I don't know when I see these things who the creator is personally, or about the context in which they produced this thing. No idea!

So I see a lot of people saying online now, "How was I supposed to know [this creator] was a Bad Person when nobody told me?"

And my answer is: you do not have to know anything about a creator to engage with their work and recognise whether or not you think their ideas are quality ones. You can learn skills and put them in your critical thinking toolbox to do this for you. And close reading skills are one way to meaningfully engage with texts on that basis.

Unfortunately, you can get about a year into an actual literature degree before a gobsmacked professor will sit a whole class down, lean wearily on his desk and say, "Does any one of you know how to do a close reading? Do they not teach that in primary?"

No. No they don't! And unless they've started doing it again pretty recently, they haven't for decades.

#they're too busy filling english classes up with shit that should have been in social sciences and civics.#and acting shocked about national reading comprehension failures #unsolicited opinions #close reading #just a personal complaint i guess #old man yells at cloud #when close reading is the ONLY tool that can end up with some fucked up readings but. it's still gotta be there.#if you only have a hammer you also fuck things up but most people would still want one in a tool kit #lit tag

16 notes · View notes