1. Chunking Critical Reading Strategy

2. What is chunking? • Chunking is a critical reading strategy used to break complicated text into smaller, more manageable sections. • Chunking can be used on lengthy and short sources, whole paragraphs, even single sentences. • Chunking is helpful to better comprehend a text, especially difficult passages and put them in terms we understand. • Chunking can help us practice paraphrasing and summarizing other writers’ ideas and words.

3. Chunking 101 • On a piece of paper, draw two, vertical columns. • Label the left side “What does this phrase, sentence, or paragraph mean?” and write down the phrase or sentence from the text. • Label the right column “Main idea(s) in my words” • It’s best to pick sentences that contain unfamiliar vocabulary, difficult prose, abstract ideas, or important rhetorical elements (definitions, arguments, criticisms, calls to action) • Here is what you sheet will look like.

4. Chunking Grid “What does this phrase, sentence, or paragraph mean? “Main idea(s) in my words” • “Quote, Quote, Quote.” • My paraphrase of “Quote, Quote, Quote.”

5. Chunking “Homeplace” Original Chunked Sentence • “In our national mythology, the worst fate is to be trapped on a farm, in a village, in the sticks, in some dead-end job or unglamorous marriage or played-out game” (Sanders 340) We can chunk the entire sentence or break it into even smaller parts. Here, Sanders is talking about being stuck in a physical location, an unrewarding job, or familiar routine

6. Chunking further. “Homeplace” • Original • Chunked Sentence =You could define what you consider our national mythology. =these three physical locations are all similar. In what way? =What about this one? • “In our national mythology, … • the worst fate is to be trapped on a farm, in a village, in the sticks,… • in some dead-end job or unglamorous marriage or played-out game” (Sanders 340) We can chunk the entire sentence or break it into even smaller parts. Here, Sanders is talking about being stuck in a physical location, an unrewarding job, or familiar routine

7. We could chunk this whole passage or break it up because we have a long list Original Chunked Sentence • He articulates the orthodoxy that I wish to counter… • The belief that movement is inherently good, staying put is bad; • that uprooting brings tolerance, while rootedness breeds intolerance; • that to be modern, enlightnened, fully of our time is to be displaced (Sanders 341)

8. Simple and short passage Original Chunked Sentence • Local knowledge is the grounding for global knowledge. Should we chunk this passage? Vocabulary is simple and the sentence is short. Is it important?