Sara Khan

Writing 10
Reading Response, Ch.2 FCT
In chapter two, Critical Reading: Getting Started, of their book, From Critical Thinking to
Argument, Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau argue that reading an essay, an article, or any form of
written knowledge, as well as understanding it, is a process understanding of a piece of
literature does not typically occur after just reading it through once. Barnet and Bedau support
this argument by pointing out relevant facts and sharing essays by college level writers, as well
as professors. Their purpose is to make college freshmen writers aware of how to gain as much
as possible from a piece of writing in order to further their academic reading and writing careers.
They use a rather laid back, semi sarcastic (but also serious when need be) tone with the intent
that the audience of the book is 18-20 year old university students.

The arguments in this book require more comment than President Calvin Coolidge
provided when his wife, who hadnt been able to go to church on a Sunday, asked him
what the preachers sermon was about. Sin, he said. His wife persisted: What did the
preacher say about it? Coolidges response: He was against it. (43)
o It was very interesting to me that the authors of this book chose to show what they
were trying not to achieve by referencing a conversation between a president and
his wife. I was kind of questioning whether or not this conversation really
happened, or if it was maybe made up to help the authors make a point.
Is it enough, then, to say that pornography stirs lustful thoughts or appeals to prurient
interests? No, because pictures of shoes probably stir lustful thoughts in shoe fetishists,
and pictures of children in ads for underwear probably stir lustful thoughts in pedophiles.
(44)
o The fact that the authors seem to have such a sarcastic, or almost playful, tone is
intriguing. It makes what should be a seemingly dry read a bit more interesting
and enjoyable. This is probably the first textbook Ive had that mentions shoe
fetishists.
But in 1956, Kenneth Clark, probably the most influential English-speaking art critic of
the twentieth century, changed all that [the idea that real pieces of art should not arouse
thoughts that the real objects might]; in a book called The Nude he announced that no
nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic
feeling. (45)
o Clark has basically taken all classical nude paintings and sculptures from the old
days and turned them into sexual icons. This section of the book started out
discussing what constitutes pornography I believe that Clark has put it quite
eloquently, anything that arouse[s] in the spectator some vestige of erotic
feeling, which is what he expected paintings from the earlier parts of the
twentieth century to do.
The authors use quite a few examples of actual essays written by college students, professors, or
journalists to make their points known. This is an effective system because first the authors
explain an aspect of reading and writing that students should be aware of, and then they
demonstrate how to properly carry it out with an example. They make it known that before
reading a piece, you want to familiarize yourself with the author thus before each example
essay, a short bio of the author was included. When Barnet and Bedau were discussing effective
note-taking techniques, they mentioned highlight or underlining important parts of passages.
They demonstrated this by the inclusion of an essay about racist speech written by a professor
and annotated by a student. This method is effective in showing the reader of the book how to
properly take notes on something you read. Examples of paraphrasing and summarizing have
also been included, to make extensively clear the difference between the two.

M: Text in a book (?)
A: college freshmen taking an academic writing course
P: To teach better ways of reading and gaining more from what you read as a student

For the most part, I agree with what was said in this chapter. Parts of it were very eye-opening as
there were things I had not thought of before. The pornography example, and how it is defined in
terms of past, present and future was something I had not thought of in that context. People talk
about pornography all the time, but Im sure everyone has different views on what the word
really means. I also had not realized how helpful paraphrasing could be until it was done in this
chapter. Paraphrasing can be a helpful tool when reading something that you dont fully
understand because putting it in your own words will help you understand it better.