Probe: Making Connections To and From
It is important when reading to broaden your perspective. To think about the connections between what we're reading and a show or movie you've watched. An album or song you've listened to. A game you've played. A book, article, YouTube video, TikTok, Tweet you've 'read.' An idea, philosophy, or concept you've discussed in another class. A piece of art. A play, a dance, an article of clothing. A photo. A word. A place. An emotion.
The connections you can make are endless as long as you can clearly articulate that connection or create a question that pushes your peers to discover that connection on their own.
Don't be too quick to make connections, doing so may ossify a first impression that you have about the text. It's important to sit with your first readings of the text, to test ideas and readings of the text that you have before using a connection to further cement those ideas.
- Make a connection that you want to explore.
- Optional: Provide any framing about the probe you've created.
- Select 'readings' that helps us better understand that connection.
- At the very least, you need to share two 'readings':
- A text that helps us explore and understand the connection.
- Evidence from the text that spurred that connection.
- Be sure that you choose a rich passage to share.
- You can have your peers find the evidence. Just make sure it is clear what they should be looking for.
- Create guiding question(s) exploring how this connection informs our understanding of the text and/or connects to themes within the text or the course.
- You could also work to connect it to:
- Bigger, Common Themes
- Previous Texts
- Analyze the 'readings' in connection to your probe.
- Basically, be ready to discuss answers to your guiding question(s) and explain the connection and how it informs your understanding of the text. In discussing your texts, be sure to be granular in your analysis.