Zk | Friday — Critical Reading
- Intro
- Intro self (incl “this is for MFA” spiel)
- Allow others to intro
- Ice breaker: What is your least favorite part of your favorite movie?
- Lead into what is a text:
- Books/writing, yes, but also anything that tells a story — film, games, etc
- Thus, what is critical reading?
- Intentional engagement with a text, especially WRT the self:
- Back to ice breaker: how do you intentionally engage with your favorite film?
- How do we intentionally engage with a text in furry?
- What do we like in a furry text?
- What don’t we like?
- Notably, not asking what makes a text furry — that we are furries is what enables us to read in that context
- Thus, how do we engage with a text that we feel is furry as furries?
- What goes into critical reading?
- Layers:
- Mechanical: presentation, word choice, language usage, writing style, etc
- Subjective: emotional impact, plot effectiveness, description, evocativeness
- “7 Trips Through the Score” — may n ot need that many, but multiple (or at least slow) reading can let us focus on one layer at a time
- Reading exercise:
- Pick 1 of these 2 categories to pay attention to first and read, then read for the second
- Critique tomorrow, but preview: we’re not tearing a text apart, we’re asking it questions:
- How did we feel the plot worked? Was there a structure? Could we follow it?
- What was told? What was left out? How did (not) knowing make us feel?
- What type of language usage was there? Word choice? Style usage?
- How about emotional impact? Was the story impactful? Did the mechanics help or hiinder?
- Was it evocative? How did the furry elements play into it? Did you want to learn more? Was it engaging?
- Be ready to summarize
- (~10 minutes to read)
- Someone summarize
- Talk through each
- Talk through how the exercise felt:
- Was it useful? Tiring? Enjoyable?
- Tomorrow, we’ll go through critiquing writing and actually workshop a piece — one of mine that has already been workshopped and published, so it’s just an example of critiquing for a present author without putting anyone on the spot
- Do you want optional homework for Sunday?
- Write a short ~500 word snippet (or offer one already written) to go through a gentle workshopping
- While writing, think about what we talked through today
- Email to me, I’ll put it online for all to read in the workshop
- Will be asking how it felt/etc