Summarize this reading in your own words (150 words).
As humans, we have an incredible capacity for absorbing information and forming thoughts and opinions from as much as a quick glance. This is an essential trait to critically analyzing the world around us as well as the worlds found in works of fiction, art, photography, and so on… Of course nobody’s required to use the skill at all times. One typically wouldn’t analyze the rhetoric of something as trite or mundane as a lump of coal. But when the time does come, it’s highly recommended of us as thinking men and women — the intelligentsia — to see through certain lenses and consider certain concepts in order to pull as much information as possible from a source. Asking questions about a text or a video or painting allows us to dig a bit deeper, facilitating the formation of strong, substantiated arguments and opinions.
What’s your response to this text? (response)
More than ever, critical analysis is an iron pillar, a cornerstone of advanced thinking. Looking through multiple lenses allows readers to see all there is to see about virtually anything; each lens is like a kaleidoscope, bursting into a vast array of patterns, shapes, and colors… I imagine trying to understand everything about a book or a movie would look something like the scene in Marvel’s Dr. Strange, where the protagonist has his mind absolutely melted by the mystic arts of the Ancient One.
What question do you have after this reading? (question/connect)
Has the introduction of fast-moving, fast-scrolling, post-after-post social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, etc., had any effect on people’s ability to critically analyze and question the things they see? Consider the politicization of these platforms and the extensive and many times biased coverage of sociopolitical events and fake news, as well as the general public’s reaction to them.