Exercise - Reading Creatively, Reading Critically
Now that you've seen how the double-entry journal can help you analyze an image, let's try it with a more familiar kind of text. I published the essay "The Importance of Writing Badly" some years ago, but I think it still expresses several of the main ideas behind this book. I'd like you to read the piece critically, though, using the double-entry journal method I just described.
As before, you'll use opposing pages of your journal.
STEP ONE: Read the essay once through, marking it up. (Make a copy if you don't want to write in your book.) Read it a second time and, on the left-hand page of your notebook, carefully copy lines or passages from the essay that
- Connected with your own experience and observations
- Raised questions for you
- Puzzled you
- Seemed to be key points
- Evoked disagreement or agreement or made you think differently
- Were surprising or unexpected
STEP TWO: Now use the right-hand page of your notebook to think further about what you wrote down on the left-hand page. Use the questions in Figure 2.3 as prompts for a focused fastwrite. Write for five or six minutes without stopping.
STEP THREE: Reread what you've written. Again, on the right-hand page of your notebok, write your half of the following imaginary dialogue with someone who b Asking you about the idea of tad writing."
Q: I don't understand how bad writing can help anyone write better. Can you explain it to me?
Q: Okay, but is it an idea that makes sense to you?
Q: What exactly (i.e.. quotation) does Ballenger say that makes you feel that way?
STEP FOUR: Finish the exercise by reflecting in your journal for five minutes on what, if anything, you noticed about using the double-entry journal to have a "conversation" with a text. In particular:
- How did it change the way you usually read an article such as this one?
- How might you adapt it for other situations in which you have to read to write?
- What worked well? What didn't?
- Do you think the method encouraged you to think more deeply about what you read?
Attachment:- Assignment.rar