CLOSE READING OF A SELECTION

Developing Skills in Critical Thinking

When you read a chapter in a social studies or science textbook, you read primarily to get the facts. Your pur- pose may be to find out how a bill proposed in Con- gress becomes a law or to understand how bats capture their prey by using sonar. You read chiefly to gather information that is stated directly on the page.

Reading literature calls for more than understanding what all the words mean and getting the facts straight. Much of the meaning of a work may be stated indirectly. For example, a writer may not tell you directly that a character has courage. However, by having that charac- ter face up to some difficult or dangerous situation the writer may show you that the character is brave. In other words, when you read literature, you depend a good deal on imference, drawing conclusions from different kinds of evidence. To read literature critically and grasp its meaning, you have to be an active reader, aware of what the author is doing, how the author is doing it, and why

A skillful reader cooperates with an author, following the develop- ment of characters and ideas, predicting actions, drawing connections between events, responding to language, and seeking to understand the author's purpose. The skillful reader also judges literature, deter- mining whether characters are believable and whether their actions are consistent, or whether the ending of a story follows logically from everything that has gone before.

In the following selection a well-known American writer tells about one of the experiences that helped to shape her imagination. As you read, ask yourself how Eudora Welty transforms a commonplace event-a ride on a train-into a vivid and interesting narrative. Use the notes alongside the selection to guide you in your reading. Then turn to the analysis on page 6.