Critical Reading: How not to get fooled by what you read
Critical reading is an essential skill for everyone in today’s world in which there is as much misinformation as there is information, with writers having vested interests or biases. Learn how to think and read critically and evaluate whether claims have justifications and sound bases.
Starts
25 May 2020
Time
On Days
Fee (₹, incl taxes)
Audience
About the Course
(This course is targeted at children entering Grades 8, 9, 10 in 2020-21)
We read news, magazines and books all the time. These may say things like ‘Virat Kohli is the greatest batsman of all time’, ‘Dark chocolate is good for health’ or ‘The great wall of China can be seen from Space’. How do we know if what we read is true- should we believe what we read in ‘reputed sources’ and disbelieve sources we don’t know about? Is there a way we can check the claims made, on our own, to decide if these are true, false or partly true? Critical reading is an essential skill for everyone in today’s world in which there is as much misinformation as there is information, with writers having vested interests or biases.
In this course, students will learn to evaluate if claims are justified, by examining the grounds (basis) for these and checking if the claim is a valid conclusion from the grounds. Through this course, students can build a habit of identifying the central claims of a piece, asking the right questions to evaluate the veracity of these claims, and also considering information that may not be present in the piece but is relevant to the evaluation. Thus students would accept or reject a claim or ‘keep it on hold’ only after sound reasoning.
Learn more about our expert course facilitator, Sriram Naganathan, here.
About our Facilitator:
Rachit is an electronics engineer who has been designing analog circuits for the past decade. His work experience includes Cosmic Circuits and Cadence Design Systems (which acquired Cosmic Circuits), on the design of integrated circuits for audio codecs, serial interfaces, and phase locked loops amongst other things. He likes to spend his time on reading, understanding audio, building speakers, music, and sports.
Rachit has a Masters degree from the Centre For Electronic Design And Technology at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.
Muralidhar (aka Murali) is senior mentor and course designer at GenWise with 20+ years of experience in the social sector. In addition to delivering Vocational Training to young adults, he is currently responsible for design, manufacturing and marketing operations at a traditional handicraft (wooden toys) enterprise near Bengaluru. Murali has also delivered training and professional development programs for secondary science teachers and 'making' skills to "gifted students" for around 4 years.
Murali has a bachelor's degree in Engineering from IIT Madras.