Welcome back. It's nice to see you. Today, we are going to have the chance to begin to think in earnest about talent and expertise, and critical reading. One of the main strategic goals of this course is to help you become stronger critical readers. And so today, I'm going to talk about a variety of approaches to that. And over the course, we'll learn more. We're going to use Coyle's text as a way of beginning to think about how to be critical readers. It's important to be a critical reader and an active reader because we wouldn't want to just wait to passively try to identify what a writer is saying to us. That's difficult because again, academic writing is meant to be an ongoing, interactive conversation. Where you read what other people have written, and you interact you advance knowledge forward and then rethink perhaps some ideas that have come. The only way we can do that is if we really engage actively with our reading. So one of the key ways is to do marginal annotations. This involves reading and rereading and rereading. You probably don't want to do marginal annotations the first time. Run through a text, you do sometimes want to just leisurely read a text and enjoy it. And then you go back a second or a third time and keep thinking about what that writer has said and make some marginal annotations. When I talk with students about this, inevitably they nod and they say okay. And then the next time I see them, they say, well I tried to actively read but I just didn't know what to write in the margins. I don't I don't have any, I don't know what to write. So I have a list here of possibilities for you to write in the margins. So you can come back to it and you can see the possibilities. One thing is that you can just circle, or note, or bracket or put an asterisk next to what you take to be main ideas of the piece. Things that you want to remember. Any significant concepts, those significant concepts might be different depending on why youre reading a piece of writing. We all approach scholarship for different reasons and we're all working on different projects. So whats significant to me for my project might be very different from whats significant for someone else. And then there are also perhaps parts of the text that are significant based on the writer's argument. You can note key terms pieces of text that if it was online it might be tagged, right, that you could, you could have a running list of key terms and concepts from the text. In addition, you might want to marginally annotate questions that you have so you can remember. And you might want to just put a question mark or you might want to write out the question in the margin. In addition, you might want to think about moments when you have an emotional response. What got you really excited or what made you really angry or what confused you? And then the last one that I. Can think of right now is contradictions and tensions. Perhaps a writer says one thing earlier in the text and then something else later in the text. And it seems like it's ambiguous or contradictory or there's some kind of tension operating in the text. I have here pages 13 and 14 from Coyle's The Sweet Spot. So I can take you through with an example from Coyle's text of how I would annotate this text, or how I do annotate the text. And I'll apologize in advance again for my handwriting, I'm sorry. Probably what I would do. Is underline Meet Brunio and Meet Jennie, because I like that pattern and that repitition. I like the two word sentences. I would notice that. I would also circle that term because I am unfamiliar with soccer and I'm unfamiliar with that term. I might actually write it out so I could have it kind of, so I can digest it a little more. And then it would remind me that I want to go look that term up, and learn more about what that term is. I would notice that we're working with Brunio, who is 11, from Brazil, and Jennie who is 24, from the US. And that raises a question for me that I would want to put here in the margin, about the universality of Coyle's argument. Is he suggesting that strategies that work for an 11-year old will also work for a 24-year old? And that strategies in all over the world are, are the same, is he making a universal argument that people who are 90 and people who live in all different places in the world? So that's something that I'd want to ask of the text, and look through other parts of the text to decide what I think Coyle is trying to say, and then what I think about that. I might also notice a tension here. So here he asks or he says, they are seeking out slippery hills. Like Clarissa, they are purposely operating at the edges of their ability. So they will screw up. And somehow screwing up is making them better. This sounds to me a little bit like screwing up is okay. Here it's okay to make mistakes. Right? So I write, mistakes are okay. And yet over here, in both of these instances with Brunio and Jennie, we reach the end goal seems to be nailing the move and Jennie sings the measure perfectly. And this seems to kind of validate perfection in a way. And so I guess I'm starting to wonder what the, what the goal is, right? Is perfection the goal? Or are mistakes the goal? And if mistakes are only the way to perfection then how important are mistakes? Or how okay are mistakes, right? If we're still trying to be perfect all the time. That's attention that I would want to continue thinking about. So, I'm going to circle that then probably draw a line there. And then finally, anytime a writer asks a question, I notice that and I put an asterisk there because I think academic writing is largely about posing important questions. And if a writer has thought a question is important enough to put in a text. I would want to think about why it's significant. With this question, I would actually ask why it's significant because I have heard before phrases like practice makes perfect or, you know, it's okay to make a mistake. And so I'm wondering why his version or his approach to that concept is a new question that we want to understand more rigorously. So this is an example of how I would annotate a text and I would like to encourage you, as you are reading Coyle, to go ahead and annotate his text. This is for you to read and understand. It doesn't matter if other people can read what you've written, just quote with an annotation system. You could put positives for things that you like, or, you know, minus signs for things that you don't like. Whatever, whatever you want to do that makes sense to you that you can remember. This will help you interact deeply with a text. In addition to marginal annotations, a really important component of critical reading and active reading is talking about ideas with other people. It's going to be much more generative and help you, it'll help you think more deeply by discussing ideas and discussing texts with other people. That's the purpose of the seminar format, right? That you get exchange ideas and raise questions and think about things and listen to other people and see how those ideas impact your work. So, academic writing is a social process. We write either literally with, with other people, but more, probably more often we write in concert with discussing ideas with other people. I’m gonna ask you to please choose one of five. areas on the discussion forum to share your ideas. And I I'll take you through here the five different areas. You can self select into whichever area you're most interested in, but I do hope that whichever area you go in, that you then go and read the other areas. Because, and you can even comment there too. Because that will help you shape your ideas more concretely about, about Coyle's ideas. In terms of choosing which area to go in, you can choose one that you feel more confident in or one that you feel like you especially need more practice in. Of course Coyle says the best way to get better at something is to make mistakes. So you can make mistakes as you're discussing it. It's okay. There are no right answers. We want to be just thoughtful about, about Coyle's approaches. So Group A, what I would like you to focus on is Coyle's main argument. What are his main claims, and what is his evidence? What if any sub-claims or smaller claims does he make throughout the text? What examples or research, or other evidence does he use? Group B, you're going to be thinking about the aims and the purpose of Coyle's text. What inspired Coyle, do you think, to write this argument? To whom do you think Coyle is writing? What do you imagine the writer might want readers to do with this argument? We can't know for sure what a writer thought. And sometimes, what writers think at one point changes, of course, a week later, or changes after a text is out. So, I'm not asking you to necessarily believe that you've gotten to the heart of the matter. But within reason, what do you imagine are range of different calls to action or ways to inspire readers that Coyle might've had in mind. What do you, what do you hope, what do you think he hopes people do with his argument? Group C, I would like you to focus on Coyle's methods. Does Coyle make any assumptions with his argument? How does Coyle collect his evidence, or do his research? How does Coyle present his argument to make it compelling or persuasive for readers. Perhaps he uses a certain style or a turn of phrase or he organizes his text in a certain way to make it more compelling or more persuasive for readers. Or sometimes not, right? You can also talk about how he doesn't, or how it didn't work for you in a certain way. How does Coyle establish his credibility? How does he show that he's an expert, that he has gained expertise about this area of inquiry. And that we as readers should learn from him and, and think about what he's saying. How does Coyle appeal to readers' emotions? Is he asking readers to be empathetic or angry or exuberant about something. How do you think he's playing into reader's emotions in order to make his argument more persuasive or compelling? And finally, Group C. Think about how Coyle has appealed also to reader's logic or reason. Maybe something seems to make sense or he's pointing out some kind of. Of inherent contradiction about the way we, we do certain things. So, think about Coyle appeals to reader's logic. Group D, I'd like you to think about the context and occasion. Group D might need to do some outside research beyond the text, in order to fully flesh out the content the context and the occasion of the work. So think about what was the occasion for writing this. What do you think happened, either what Coyle says within the text or what you can find out from outside the text to, to create this, this text? What circumstances shaped this work and how do you think they impacted the work? These circumstances can be political or cultural or logistical constraints like funding, time, presumably he had a deadline, he had editors and publishers working with him so those kinds of circumstances and what can you determine about that from the text and also from looking on the internet. Group D I'd also like you to think about what do we know about who this writer is. Based on the text again and your research, who is Coyle, what else has he done. And finally what do we know about the occasion of publication, what year was this text written in and what was going on and whats different now than, than what's happening then. Group E, you guys are working with questions. And again, questions are a cornerstone of academic writing and being able to pose significant questions is, is really an incredible helpful skill for you. So literally please look for questions that Coyle asks. We already named one with the how with the question marks, so just look for question marks in his text. And note when those questions happen and then think about why they're significant. Why do you imagine that Coyle chose to write that as a question? What larger questions is Coyle grappling with and what questions does the text generate for you? What kinds of questions did you write in your marginal notations? As you're posting to the forum, please be sure to cite page numbers. It's really important. If, if I'm reading your discussion forum, and I want to see a question. I'm, it's going to be hard for me to flip through all of Coyle to know which page it occurs on. So go ahead and just cite, say, on page 14, he asks how. I'm not sure if it was 14. Whatever page it was, right? So, go ahead. For all of you, please, please cite the page numbers. So, I am excited to see rigorous, vibrant discussion about Coyle that will help us move towards project one.
