27 reasoning the text employed regarding what context is defined or used, whether a
text appeal of the theory or theories, then how the theory or theories isare used to organize and interpret the data. The readers also can examine the organization
of the text and how the author analyzed the materials or elements. The fourth characteristic is on the point of evidence provided by the author. In evidence,
critical reading examines the evidence supporting facts or examples that the text presented. Then, the readers can consider the kind of evidence used, and how the
evidence is used to develop the arguments and its controlling claims or concepts. The last characteristic is on the point of evaluation of the text. In evaluation,
critical reading also may involve evaluation of the weaknesses and strengths of the text. This means critical reading uses analysis as a bridge to evaluate the
points presented in the text.
2.1.3.2.2 Principles of Teaching Critical Reading
In teaching critical reading, RMIT University states that there are at least three ways: comprehension, analysis and interpretation. In reading with
comprehension, one is reading to find out what the text says or the main ideas of the text. In reading with analysis, one is reading to find out what the text does or
how is the information presented. In reading with interpretation, one is reading to find out what the text means in a broader context or what the text is saying.
Those ways of reading in their relation to each other enable the students to be critical of what they have read not only to accept all the information presented.
Students in their first stage need to comprehend the text which means they need to
28 understand what the text is saying. Then, after understanding the text, they are
encouraged to be able to understand whether the text is presenting good organization of ideas, whether the supporting details are related to the main ideas
presented, and whether the arguments are supporting each other to build the subject matter. Next, the students are also encouraged to be able to analyze the
message brought by the author on a larger scope by connecting it to their lives, their surrounding and their past experience.
According to Wheeler 2012 these ways of reading are developed into several stages of reading techniques in the implementation; pre-reading,
interpretive reading and critical reading. In pre-reading, there are activities of preliminary examination, clarification of the text, and skeleton examination.
These activities are implemented in some reading teaching techniques. According to Pardede 2006, out of those most important activities in pre-reading, there are
previewing, skimming, and prediction about the text. Previewing, according to Pardede 2006, is the activity where students look at the titles, headings, and
pictures and read the first few paragraphs and last paragraphs. From the description of the activities, the aim of this previewing is to encourage the
students to get used to the text, the subjects, and the topic discussed before reading the whole text.
Skimming, according to Raygor and Raygor 1985 is different from normal reading in which not all materials are read because the aim is to get the general
information of the text. From the definition of skimming, the researcher gained the idea that skimming is an activity to find out the general subject matter or issue
29 on the text by reading several parts of the text with the aim to generally describe
what the text is about before reading the whole text. Prediction, according to Smith, is the prior elimination of unlikely
alternatives in which he proposes that prediction is the questions the readers ask the world as cited in Pardede, 2006. Then, comprehension is receiving the
answer. The definition given explained that when readers made prior questions towards the text, it means that the readers set some prior goals to be answered by
the text itself based on the previewing and skimming activities. In the interpretive reading, there are activities of finding important words,
paraphrasing, summarizing, and understanding parts you do not understand. According to Kurland 2000, this stage of reading is also called pre-critical
reading in which while reading one concerns on recognizing what the text says about the topic. The goal of it as stated by Kurland 2000 is to make sense of
presentation as a sequence of thoughts, to understand the information, ideas, and opinions stated within the text from the sentence to sentence and paragraph to
paragraph. However, in order to differentiate this stage from the critical reading stage, Kurland 2000 states that pre-critical reading only recognizes what the text
says but not how the text portrays the subject matter. In the critical reading, there are activities, such as asking initial questions,
marking the notes to analyze the elements of the text, and evaluating the ideas and interpret the text. Knott n.d. states that to read critically is to make a judgment
on how a text is argued. That is why she believed that critical reading is seen as ways of thinking about the subject matter. In order to understand reading as ways
30 of thinking, one needs to really understand how the elements of the text
constructed and related to each other to form a complete or a whole ideas of the subject matter by analyzing the text or breaking the elements, evaluating the text
or seeing the strengths, and weaknesses and interpreting the text or grabbing the message.
2.1.3.2.3 Nature of Critical Writing
