1.1 Identity and Mindful Reading Practices

Identity

Our reading, writing and speaking practices who we are and where we come from. As we’ll see in this text, this is a good thing! It means that we have unique and valuable perspectives and contributions to make through writing that reflects our own identities. Identity refers to the many aspects of who we are (our backgrounds, cultures, languages, beliefs, and experiences). It is deeply personal, but also shaped by society. Reflecting on identity is crucial to understanding who we are, as well as the range of factors that inform our perspective, framing how we think and learn. That is, understanding and celebrating your own identity is a key place to begin when strengthening your critical thinking and writing skills.

In the classroom, we can use introductions and the process of learning classmates’ names to create community and belonging, as well as introduce concepts that are central to the course and the practices of critical thinking and writing, such as identity. Consider the significance of your own name:

• What stories have you been told about the significance of your name to your parents, your family, your community, or other groups?
• Why was your name chosen?
• Does your name have other cultural or historical meanings that you have learned about, and do you relate to those meanings at all?
• What other names are you called by other groups of people, and how do those names reveal a different sense of identity that you experience in different contexts?

Your instructor may ask you to share some of these reflections with your classmates as a way of introducing yourself and building community as a class. Consider how your answers compare to those of your classmates. How can you use their answers to understand them better and form connections?

Developing Mindful Reading Practices

Just like our range of names, experiences and identities, students in this course also come with a range of reading strategies and practices. Just as we seek to understand our identities as shapers of our ways of knowing, so too must we understand our own learning practices and approaches. What does your reading process typically look like? Do you take notes as you read? If so, do you write directly on the text (whether in a physical or digital format), in a separate notebook, online document, or note-taking app? There are many approaches to writing while reading, and each reflects a different style of learning and engaging with texts. Paying attention to them is called mindful reading, and helps to build metacognition, or the ability to understand and better control your learning processes.

Because writing helps you to think analytically about what you’re reading (what parts seem most significant to you, how those parts relate to each other, and the text as a whole), it’s important to take notes on—or annotate—a text as you read it. When you annotate, you are interacting with the text on a deeper level. This helps you not only to remember what you’ve read, but to formulate your own ideas and responses to the text. As such, it’s an important step to entering any critical conversation.

In A Writer’s Guide to Mindful Reading [Website], Ellen C. Carillo explains that annotation serves as a powerful launching point for deeper engagement with texts, creating a foundation for the kind of critical thinking and analysis required when writing essays or designing projects that involve working with sources.

Annotations generally involve both marking a text—underlining or highlighting key passages, words, and ideas—and adding notes on why you marked it, why you found those sections significant or confusing, or what questions were raised for you. Your notes may include your observations, connections to other readings or prior learning, or questions. Annotations can be handwritten and look like this: “About Annotation” [Website].

They may also be digital. Refer to the appendix resources on the social annotation tool Hypothesis for more information about digital social annotation that your instructor may have you use in this class.

To deepen your understanding of a text and prepare to annotate, Carillo emphasizes the importance of thinking about your purpose for reading, as well as how the type of assignment—what you are being asked to do with or in relation to the text— will shape the approaches you take and the strategies you use.

• Are you reading to later write a summary of the text?
• Are you reading to compare the text to another text?
• Are you reading to see if the text can serve as a source in a research paper?
• Are you reading to design a multimodal project?
• Are you reading to imitate an author’s style?

If you are being asked to analyze or summarize a text, use the Says/Does Approach to deepen your understanding of how the text is organized and how the parts operate in relation to the whole.

For example, look at the section of “America, Say My Name” in which Nguyen recalls how a soldier translated his name as “Bruce Smith.”

• Why does Nguyen share this anecdote? How does it function in the context of his overall message about identity and assimilation?
• How does Nguyen use humor in this passage? What is its purpose?
• Why does Nguyen introduce other names, such as George Washington and Amerigo Vespucci? What is the purpose or significance of these references?

What this part of the text says: According to Nguyen, the soldier claimed that “Smith” is the American equivalent of Nguyen, a common Vietnamese surname.

What it does: This passage uses humor to make us think about the topic of assimilation—how names are anglicized to make them more “acceptable.”

Intersectional Reading Strategies

Intersectionality provides a framework for understanding how different components of our identity shape our lived experiences—this includes how a reader’s or writer’s identity shapes what they pay attention to, the questions they ask, and the connections they make. In this way, intersectionality helps us to account for the multiplicity of perspectives and knowledge-making practices we bring to analyzing texts. For this reason, we encourage you to participate in group annotations that allow you to engage in dialogue with the text and with your peers, if you are given the chance by your professor (see Appendix A for instructions on using Hypothes.is for social annotation [Chapter]). By considering others’ interpretations as you develop your analysis, you will gain a deeper understanding of the text and different ways of reading it.

Reflecting on the communities you are part of and the values you hold also helps us to understand how systems of power and privilege affect meaning, making some aspects of identity more “visible” or “valued,” and some perspectives or practices seemingly more natural or correct, within academic institutions.

These dynamics are context-specific. For example, in the context of critical thinking and writing, it might not occur to you to note that you are a first-year student, because that may seem to be an identity that everyone can assume. But if you are a transfer student, your academic status in this context might be more apparent to you. In any case, each facet of your identity shapes your experience and what you notice, in ways both apparent and subtle. Recognizing the specificity of our own positionality helps us to better understand our own thinking, examine our assumptions, and ultimately communicate more effectively across interpersonal and intercultural differences.