Writing responses to articles -- talking back to text

As you read academic books and articles, view videos, films and works of art, hear lectures, etc., it is helpful to engage with these 'texts' in a real or imagined conversation. Thinking and engaging critically doesn't necessarily mean being negative about what you're reading! It just means that you
ask questions, connect your reading to your own knowledge and experiences, think about what is not included or what could have been as well as what is included in the piece, etc.

Some good starting prompts for engaging in a critical dialogue with a text:

• I was surprised by...
• I was excited to read that ....
• I was annoyed to read ...
• I wholeheartedly agreed/ disagreed with the author on this point.... because....
• I wondered why ...
• I would illustrate this piece as follows ... (with a story, a diagram, a drawing, a comic strip, a graph, etc.)
• I could predict .... but not ... in this piece
• If I could talk to the author, I would ask them...
• This relates to my own life/ knowledge/ experiences in this way...
• Something that was not included in this piece was ...
• This piece reminded me of (something else I've seen/ heard/ experienced), in this way...
• If you extended this idea to the limit, it would result in ...
• This fits into the author's other work in this way...
• I see the following influences in this piece: ...
• The author interprets .... in the same (or a very different) way than I would: ...