What does it mean to “read” a text?

This section asks you to take a new look at the act of reading. You know that a person can read an article, but can he “read” a painting? Someone can read a book, of course, but can she “read” a podcast? Your immediate answer might be “No, of course not!” But if you can rethink what it means to read—and consider that reading can mean taking a closer look or listening critically—your answer might be “Well, maybe!”

This section also asks you to reconsider what is meant by the word text. Most people would call an essay or a poem a text. Can a movie soundtrack or a cartoon be called a text?

To start to understand what text can mean, compare John Keats’s drawing of an ancient urn with his 1819 poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”

Drawing of and poem on a Grecian urn

What are the characteristics that might lead us to call the drawing a text? What are the characteristics that might lead us to call the poem a text? How would we “read” the image of the urn? How do we “read” the poem?

If reading means discovering what a text is saying, it’s helpful to consider how the text presents its meaning. In the poem, meaning is presented through written words. The drawing shows details from the actual urn, including images that communicate meaning. Both “texts” tell a story for a purpose and to an audience.

Reading may also require careful attention to the historical and cultural context in which a text is created. A text always emerges out of a time and a place and a social situation. To read Keats’s poem effectively may require knowing something about the English Romantic literary movement. To read the image of the urn effectively may require a familiarity with the uses of urns and other pottery in ancient Greece.

Almost anything can be read—that is, carefully approached and analyzed for what it does and how it does what it does. Almost anything can be a text—that is, something that conveys meaning. Reading carefully and critically often means asking questions about a text:

Reading for a college course requires active, thoughtful investigation.

Related topics:

Annotating an image or a multimodal text

Guidelines for actively reading an image or a multimodal text

What is multimodal composing?

Composing hasn’t changed

Composing has changed

Composing in college

Composing beyond college

A toolkit for analyzing and composing multimodal texts