- War
- Politics, Race & Society
- Sex & Body Image
- Interviews & Icons
I will issue you with a hard back exercise book that you can use as a reading journal.
As you read them carefully you should
- summarise the main points in each article
- underline points and annotate the text
- identify the main structure or sections of the article
- you could give a lable or a title for each paragraph of the article
- identify which points are facts and which points opinions
- a fact is: "a thing that is known or proved to be true"
- an opinion is: "a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge."
- note down the attitudes and assumptions the writer has to the subject
- one way to do this is to identify emotive words and phrases and consider what the emotions are evoked
- another way might be to consider the motivations of the writer. Are they just informing or perhaps they want to persuade readers to a specific point of view.
- make sure you understand all words and phrases you don't understand
- download a dictionary app to your mobile. I use dictionary.com
- research the historical context of the article
- make a note of the date, writer and publication of the article and consider and perhaps do a little research on the writer, contemporary events and publication
- identify key words and phrases that link relevant news and topical issues and use google to do a little research
