What's The Point?
Every text that we encounter has a purpose for it's existence, some having more than others. One goal of interrogating a text is to discover why it exists. The relevance of it's existence may lead to your opinion, but your opinion of the text is different from interrogating the text.
Who's It For?
Another key part of interrogating a text is being aware of the audience the text was written for. Just because you may not like the writer's opinion in the text or the audience the writer is aiming towards, you cannot use your displeasure with the text as a form of interrogation.
I feel there is more to interrogating text than I have mentioned, but I think that keeping these two questions in mind while reading a text will help better understand the text.Critically analyzing and addressing a text is much different than giving an opinion on a text. By understanding the purpose and the audience of the text, it is easier for one to do the former than the latter.
Mike:
ReplyDeleteInteresting to hear that you universally think so highly about your audience. Don't you imagine there are texts for which audience awareness is irrelevant or secondary?