Writing While Reading

In order to read any kind of text critically—to understand what you are reading and come up with ideas in response—you’ll want to read with a pen or pencil in hand, or your fingers on a keyboard, in order to write while you read by both annotating the text and taking notes in your writer’s notebook. Read tips for reading and annotating texts in Open English @ SLCC.

TRY THIS to practice notetaking by reading a visual text. Choose a photograph that includes people—ideally an image that is random with little context provided—by browsing online or through periodicals. Searching for photo caption contests online is a great way to find good images for this exercise, or you could browse “What’s Going on in this Picture” from the New York Times. Look closely at the photograph and respond (even only jotting down notes) to the following questions being as thorough and detailed as possible:

Description

Place (where/what is this? what does it look like?) and people (what do they look like? what are they doing?)

Narration

What happened before, during, and after this photograph?

Dialogue

What are the people saying or thinking?

Read over your responses. Which words or statements are based on your “direct observations—concrete, verifiable details” and which are “your personal reactions, opinions, feelings, and questions about” what you observed in the photograph (Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater 90)? What parts of what you wrote are grounded in fact based on the data (the photograph) and what parts represent your analysis or interpretation—can you tell the difference?

Copy the double-entry notetaking chart below into your writer’s notebook (which may be an actual notebook or an electronic file). Categorize what you wrote in response to the questions about the photograph, organizing your observations and descriptions in the left “record” column and analysis and interpretation in the right “respond” column.

Lastly, look back to the double-entry chart. Which interpretations and analyses are reasonable and which need further “tested” with additional data through further research?

Now that you have practice “reading” a visual text in this way, try reading verbal, or written, texts in the same way taking double-entry notes in order to both understand (record) and respond to the text.