Are Your Students Critically RATKISS

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finding an easy-to-remember, easy-to-implement,

step-by-step method for understanding and evalu-

ating written opinion.

Finding a catchy acronym, for me, seemed

like the right place to start. Acronyms are the ulti-

mate mnemonic, providing meaning or structure

[to] material that is otherwise not very meaningful

or organized (Higbee 94). I doubt that RATTKISSwill ever rise to the great heights of ROY G. BIV

(colors in a spectrum) or SOH-CAH-TOA (sine-

cosine-tangent ratios). However, I confidently sug-

gest that, twenty years from now, my more

enthusiastic students will remember RATTKISS

and most or all of its components.

The steps within this process draw on parts of

the critical reading methods described by Deanne

Spears, H. Ramsey Fowler and Jane E. Aaron, and

Amy Wall and Regina Wall. The significant differ-

ence in RATTKISS is that it is geared specifically toshort opinion pieces, which often pack the biggest

argumentative punch, and that, again, its unusual

mnemonic provides for long-term memory and

application by young adult students.

And so, I present RATTKISS (see fig. 1), a

step-by-step, acronym approach for critically read-

ing a short opinion piece. I look at what step each

letter stands for and consider the brief process

behind each step.

ats can be intriguing and some-

times scary. And, for some young

people, kissing can be intriguing

and sometimes scary, too. So, pre-

dictably, the second I use the words rat and kiss

together, in a classroom full of older teens, I garner

some attention and hold onto it longer than the

usual five seconds. Heres a copy of an editorialfrom this weeksNewsweek. Lets RATTKISS it!

Huh?

And the process of teaching one method for

critical reading begins.

There are few things more rewarding than

teaching the art of nonfiction critical reading,

where students learn to delve beneath the surface of

what they are reading and judge it for truthfulness,

logic, evenhandedness, and importance. There are,

indeed, some wonderful books written on the art of

nonfiction critical reading. This is appropriately so:critical reading is now its own category on the SAT

Reasoning Test, accounting for one-third of the

maximum 2,400 points awarded on the standard-

ized college admissions test. More importantly,

judging the merit and quality of what one reads is

what academic growth is all about.

However, when teaching students how to

take their time and critique a typical, one- or two-

page written commentary, I have had difficulty

Scott Snair proposes a mnemonic for students to use when critically examining written opinion.

The acronym, RATTKISS, represents a step-by-step method for understanding and evaluating

written opinion.

Scott Snair

Are Your Students CriticallyReading an Opinion Piece? Have

Them RATTKISS It!

R

A M E R I C A N C A C O P H O N Y : L A N G U A G E S , L I T E R A T U R E S , A N D C E N S O R S H I P>

52 English Journal Vol. 97, No. 3 J anuary 2008

I have pressed the first lever, said OBrien. You understand the construction of this

cage. . . . Have you ever seen a rat leap through the air?

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Copyright 2008 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.


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The R Is for Riters Background

The first step in the RATTKISS critical reading

process is establishing the authors background. It is

difficult to fully consider persuasive discourse with-

out first considering the credentials and life experi-

ences of the person offering it. The same argument

put forth in one article by a civil rights leader and in

another article by the national director of a Ku Klux

Klan organization probably suggests two different

things by two different writers. Granted, the lofty

thinker says, Let us consider the argument solely on

its merits and not on its source. And, admittedly,

cutting down an opinion strictly because of its source

means exploiting one of the most common logical fal-

lacies there isthe ad hominem argument.

However, going to the other extreme and

ignoring a writers background means discountinghis or her strengths and familiarities as well as his

or her predispositions. The reality is that even if

policy-driven researchers and writers do not hold

extreme predispositions, they still rest on a founda-

tion of experiences and surroundings that have

shaped their writing, and it is folly to assume oth-

erwise. As my good friend Marty Finkelstein at

Seton Hall University says, Prominent researchers

dont have biasesbut they do have agendas!

Should the reader of David Brookss commen-

tary in theNew York Times know that he was once aconservative columnist who, by his admission, has

moved to more moderate positions in recent years?

Should the Web site reader or radio listener of Matt

Drudge know that he broke the story that led to the

Monica Lewinsky scandal? Should the television

viewer know that ABC News commentator George

Stephanopoulos used to work for Bill Clinton or

that Fox News president Roger Ailes used to work

for George H. W. Bush? You bet.

Borrowing from the best-known academic

mnemonic there isthe three Rsthe first letter

of RATTKISS stands for riters background, where

students briefly research and consider the personal

history of the author of the opinion piece.

The A Is for Analyze

TheA in RATTKISS stands foranalyze. To analyze

something simply means to break it down into its

basic components, usually

with the intent of studying it.

During this step, students

read the article and circle

those sentences that best state

the main points the writer is

trying to make. In written

commentary relying too heav-

ily on tapping into the read-

ers emotions or using weak orerroneous logic, the students

might discover that they have

circled few sentences. Won-

derful! The point of this step

in critical reading is to set aside the garnish and

determine what is really being served for dinner.

After circling the authors big, important

points, students determine what circled items serve

as the main arguments and what items serve as sup-

ports for those arguments. If students are able to

group these important points into arguments andsupports, they should do so.

From the circled items, students should be able

to establish the writers intention when creating this

article and what the writer is hoping to convince the

reader of. Students might also be able to look at these

circled items and establish what attitude the writer

holds toward the subject matter or toward the object

of opinion.

The First TIs for Tone

In the acronym RATTKISS, RATT has two Ts. The

first Tis for tone. Having analyzed the article by cir-

cling the important items, grouping them, and

looking for intent and attitude, students move on

to determining the authors tone. Tone is the emo-

tion (or lack of emotion) in any written work. Tone

can be, among many possibilities, formal, casual,

nostalgic, satirical, or whimsical. It can be opti-

mistic or pessimistic, triumphant or defeatist.

53English Journal

Scott Snair

The significant difference

in RATTKISS is that it is

geared specifically to

short opinion pieces,

which often pack the

biggest argumentative

punch, and that, again, its

unusual mnemonicprovides for long-term

memory and application

by young adult students.

FIGURE 1. RATTKISS Method

R Riters BackgroundA AnalyzeT ToneT TopicK

Kontrolling IdeaIS SynthesizeS Scrutinize

}


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Students should consider, from the stand-

point of critical reading, a few noteworthy things

when deciding what tone the author is taking. For

example, in argumentative writing, the author can

take a particular attitude not only toward the sub-

ject of the debate but also toward the readers. Thisattitude might be bitter toward the topic but grat-

ifying toward the readers. Or it might be upbeat

toward the subject but condescending toward the

readers. As students read the article, they should

ask themselves, What are this commentators feel-

ings toward the topic? and What is this commen-

tators outlook toward me, the reader?

Is it unfair to allege that opinion writers choose

appealing to their core readership over persuading

the rarely persuaded or, for that matter, over offering

the occasionally contrarian opinion? Maybe. How-

ever, it is difficult, even for the author of peer-

reviewed, research-based essays, to completely forget

who the audience is. And for the extreme commenta-

tor, with a core audience of passionate opinion-hold-

ers, it is undoubtedly tough to feed the bears

vegetables when they are looking for raw meat. As

part of the critical reading process, establishing tone

helps determine if the author is defiant, inflexible,

overly harsh or generous, or flat-out disregarding of

facts when spelling out his or her argument.

The Second TIs for Topic

The second Tin RATTKISS stands for topic. If the

article is well-structured, it contains a main-idea

sentence. A main idea, notes Spears, has two com-

ponentsthe topic and the controlling idea (31).

In a main-idea sentence, the topic is often the sub-

ject of both the sentence and the article, and the

controlling idea is the remainder of the sentence.

Naturally, it is easier to critique an opinion piece if

the student identifies its general subject.

I have been surprised when asking students,

What is the topic of this article? to hear severalwidely varying answers. Not that consensus is neces-

sary, but if something as basic as the topic of an opin-

ion piece is open for debate, it speaks volumes about

the wonderful, dynamic nature of critical reading.

The Kand the IAre for Kontrolling Idea

The second component of an articles main idea, and

the main-idea sentence, if there is one, is its control-

ling idea. The controlling idea funnels the topic,

making it more specific and more manageable. In an

opinion piece, the controlling idea often reveals the

commentators predominant view on the subject or

the chief argument he or she is attempting to make.

By using poetic license and changing the C toaKin controlling, I use theKand I to form the first

two letters in the KISS of RATTKISS.

The First SIs for Synthesize

The firstS in the KISS of RATTKISS stands forsyn-

thesize. Depending on the age of the students, this

first S could also stand for secret meanings without

taking away from the importance of reading

between the lines and synthesizing the commentary.

If analyzing something means breaking it

down into its basic components, synthesizing isblending them together again. However, the word

synthesize means something more: It means to blend

elements in a way that something entirely new is

created. By determining the articles main idea,

tone, important points, and authors background,

students are able to see that perhaps theres some-

thing there that wasnt there before. This is the part

of the process where hidden or underlying mean-

ings make themselves most apparent. It is also the

step where students are most likely to determine if

the author is singing to the choir, that is, writingfor his or her core readership, which, incidentally,

could include young people, sometimes impres-

sionable and sometimes hasty to judge.

The Second SIs for Scrutinize

The final letter in RATTKISS stands for the final

step in this critical reading processscrutinize.

Depending on the age of the students, this secondS

could also stand forsupport or deny.

Scrutinizing entails answering a few ques-

tions. Is the author qualified to write on the topicon which he or she has chosen to offer an opinion?

What are the important points, and through what

type of lens does the writer view these points and

the readership? Is the main idea easy enough to

decipher? What lies between the lines? Are there

any logical fallacies or an overuse of emotional liter-

ary weaponry? Is the argument well thought out

and well structured? Should readers agree or dis-

agree? Why or why not?

54 January 2008

Are Your Students Critically Reading an Opinion Piece? Have Them RATTKISS It!


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Are Your Students Critically RATKISS