Forming Questions Based On Critical Reading. Read The Handou ✓ Solved

Forming Questions Based on Critical Reading. Read the handou

Forming Questions Based on Critical Reading. Read the handout 'How to Ask an Open-Ended Question'. Reflect on what you learned in the course by practicing the skill of asking an open-ended academic question. Think of an open-ended question about literature that challenges your peers to reflect more deeply. Also reflect on your initial response to the Clugston (2014) quote from Week One: “There’s a powerful curiosity about human relationships and how to cope in the world in which we find ourselves.” How have your feelings about literature changed or remained the same? Write an initial post of at least 200 words that constructs an open-ended question focused on specific literary conflicts, techniques, or themes (avoid yes/no and overly broad questions), shares what you learned from peers' posts, and discusses your response to the Clugston quote and how learning changed your perspective on literature. Then respond to at least two classmates' initial posts with at least 75 words each, attempting to answer their questions and reflecting on course progress and similarities or differences in responses to the Clugston quote now versus at the beginning.

Paper For Above Instructions

Introduction

This paper follows the cleaned assignment instructions above: it proposes a focused open-ended academic question about literature, reflects on the Clugston (2014) quotation, synthesizes learning gained from peers, and models two substantive peer responses. The goal is to show how asking specific, open-ended questions deepens critical engagement and how sustained discussion changes interpretive habits (Rosenblatt, 1978; Fish, 1980).

Open-Ended Question for Class Discussion

Proposed question: How does an author’s manipulation of narrative perspective (first-person, unreliable narrator, focalization) shape reader empathy for morally ambiguous characters, and in what ways does that perspective compel us to reevaluate our judgments about responsibility and societal context in the text?

This question is intentionally focused: it targets narrative perspective as a technique, asks about its ethical and affective effects (empathy, judgment), and invites evidence-based analysis rather than a yes/no reply (Booth, 1983; Iser, 1978). Peers can examine specific passages, compare texts, or apply theoretical frameworks such as reader-response or narratology to support claims (Bakhtin, 1981; Fish, 1980).

Reflection on My Initial Response to the Clugston Quote

At the course start, Clugston’s (2014) line—“There’s a powerful curiosity about human relationships and how to cope in the world in which we find ourselves.”—struck me as a romantic endorsement of empathy through reading. I valued literature mainly for its capacity to cultivate feeling. After engaging with a range of texts, close-reading techniques, and classmates’ perspectives, my view broadened: literature does cultivate empathy, but it also trains analytical habits and ethical imagination by making visible social structures and rhetorical strategies that shape relationships (Rosenblatt, 1978; Eagleton, 1983).

Where I once emphasized affect, I now see literature as both affective and cognitive. Close reading reveals how techniques—narrative perspective, irony, indirection—mediate our emotional responses and sometimes complicate them (Booth, 1983; Iser, 1978). This shift aligns with scholarship that treats reading as transactional and interpretive rather than purely emotive (Rosenblatt, 1978). Thus, my response to Clugston has evolved from valuing literature primarily for emotional insight to valuing it equally for its capacity to cultivate judgment, contextual understanding, and dialogic thinking (Bakhtin, 1981).

What I Learned from Peers

Reading peers’ posts revealed several recurring insights. First, many classmates emphasized historical and social context as essential for ethical reading; context reframes seemingly simple moral choices in literature (Eagleton, 1983). Second, peers showed how formal techniques—syntax, point of view, and narrative gaps—actively produce ambiguity and invite reader participation (Iser, 1978). Third, exchanges highlighted divergent reader responses: where some valued character interiority, others prioritized structural critique. These differences illustrated that interpretation is shaped by critical frameworks and lived experience, supporting Fish’s argument about interpretive communities (Fish, 1980).

Model Responses to Two Classmates

Response to Classmate A (sample, ~80 words)

I appreciate your close reading of the narrator’s repeated use of conditional mood in Chapter 3. That grammatical pattern does more than soften claims—it signals the narrator’s constant negotiation with counterfactual possibilities, which in turn invites the reader to inhabit ambiguity rather than accept a single moral stance (Booth, 1983). To expand, consider how the conditional interacts with descriptive detail: does it domesticate or estrange the character’s actions? Comparing passages where the mood shifts may reveal deliberate manipulations of empathy (Rosenblatt, 1978).

Response to Classmate B (sample, ~80 words)

Your question about whether historical context mitigates a protagonist’s transgression is important. Context can explain but not always excuse, and attending to narrative framing helps us see when an author asks readers to judge or to understand (Eagleton, 1983). I suggest tracing textual signals—tone, irony, focalization—that cue reader stance. Also consider the end of the text: does the resolution demand accountability or complicity? Looking at closure can clarify whether the author invites forgiveness or critique (Iser, 1978).

Progress and Comparative Reflection

Over the course, peer dialogue shifted my interpretive practice in three concrete ways. First, I now foreground technique in every reading: before forming an evaluative stance I ask how narrative choices structure response (Booth, 1983). Second, I balance empathy with critique, aiming to understand characters’ contexts without collapsing explanation into exculpation (Eagleton, 1983). Third, I have come to value diversity of interpretive approaches: divergent responses are not errors but opportunities to test evidence and refine claims (Fish, 1980; Brookfield & Preskill, 1999).

Conclusion and Implications for Future Reading

Asking precise, open-ended questions about literary technique and ethical effects deepens discussion and learning. My understanding of Clugston’s claim has matured: literature’s “powerful curiosity” indeed fosters empathy, but it also trains analytic rigor and moral imagination when readers attend to how texts shape response (Rosenblatt, 1978; Paul & Elder, 2006). Moving forward, I will prioritize questions that connect form and effect, invite evidence-based debate, and recognize the interpretive pluralism that characterizes serious literary study (Bloom, 1956; Brookfield & Preskill, 1999).

References

• Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. University of Texas Press.
• Booth, W. C. (1983). The Rhetoric of Fiction. University of Chicago Press.
• Bloom, B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals. Longmans.
• Brookfield, S. D., & Preskill, S. (1999). Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms. Jossey-Bass.
• Clugston, M. (2014). [Quotation referenced in course materials].
• Eagleton, T. (1983). Literary Theory: An Introduction. Blackwell.
• Fish, S. (1980). Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Harvard University Press.
• Iser, W. (1978). The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Paul, R., & Elder, L. (2006). Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life. Pearson.
• Rosenblatt, L. M. (1978). The Reader, the Text, the Poem: The Transactional Theory of the Literary Work. Southern Illinois University Press.