Know how much time and work a particular assignment calls for. Some you should skim; others you should read closely and critically. A few may even call for a detailed analysis. In our class, most literary texts will call for close, critical reading. However, unless otherwise indicated, you might give a cursory reading to the introductions. And depending on how familiar you are with literary analysis and MLA documentation, some of the Simon and Schuster material you may even be able to simply skim.

When you first examine a reading, try to gain a sense of the overall structure of ideas and concerns. Look at titles, chapter headings, lists, and words and phrases bolded or in italics. These often clue you in to an essay's key concepts, central concerns, or organization. Be aware of the genre of the work: a poem calls for different reading skills than a play or a novel. Pay attention to the beginning and ending. Such matters help orient you for a close, detailed reading.

Highlighters can make you passive because you tend to mark main ideas without taking more extensive notes that actively respond to the text (see below). If you are marking a text as a word-processing document, make your comments in another font or in bold between paragraphs.

When you find passages confusing or particularly difficult, make a note to yourself to look up a word, idea, or reference that might help clear up matters. But do this after you have finished your reading. Stopping too often to look up unknown terms can cause you to lose the overall sense of the text. Likewise, learn to pay attention to the footnotes. Often the notes give you key background clues you need to understand a passage. Yet don't let these overwhelm you. Sometimes you can lose sight of the forest for the trees. If a note does not seem to offer any major insight, keep it in mind for later study, but move on.

Sometimes putting a very difficult passage in your own words will help you make sense of it. At least, it gives you a tentative idea that you can later refine and build on.

"You've got to be kidding, right?" some students will ask. Of course, you have to balance all your various requirements and commitments, but if you have the time, rereading a passage you find difficult (or even enjoyable) can reveal additional meanings and connections any first reading tends to overlook.

Often the oral nature of a work, especially a poetic one, can better be understood when we read portions of it aloud. Try reading for a sense of the rhythms, the sound changes and patterns, the places one should emphasize, the speed and intonation. Sometimes a passage that seems confusing on a first read will make more sense when you hear the voice behind it.

Try conceiving of this as the evidence one musters for a law case. Not every interpretation is equally valid. Some do a better job with the evidence than others. Some make a suggestion that is at best tangential. Many have to be thrown out because they make claims the evidence doesn't back up. Your goal is to come up with the most convincing evidence.

An ill-structured problem is one that does not immediately suggest one right answer. Such problems tend to work with incomplete data or within the contradictory claims of a field. It often helps students to see interpretation as a chance for problem-solving, not because texts are "problems" but because they offer opportunities for generating ideas and responses.

• It avoids "ego-think" where each person refuses to listen to other ideas or ever consider alternatives.
• It avoids "clone-think" where each person fills the need to always agree with everyone else and never challenge the status quo.
• It considers the "idiot idea generator." Sometimes the idea that seems the most unworkable or inapplicable contains the kernel of a real solution or suggestive new interpretation.
• It works towards consensus yet is willing to live with difference.
• It respects each member's time, work, and ideas.

While not every text we will read and study offers equal amounts of wisdom and truth, all can equally be studied within the larger framework of our worldview. As we spend our time and energy engaging such works, I hope some of us may even discover that such work can even be a form of service to God's greater purposes.