Reading Comprehension Skills for Literary or Imaginative Texts
Literary Reading Skills
What happens when we read?
Or, more to the point, what happens when we read well ? The construction of this part of the site crystalised itself out of following the process of reading. Any reader follows the thread of printed words through a half-seen maze of associations, evocations, references, background knowledge ... and the more informed and practiced the reader, the more he or she is actively aware of what is going on.
All reading involves something of that 'half-seen maze' considering fifty-fifty the nearly straightforward, thing-of-fact expression uses words which have associations, references, etc - but it is surely part of the definition of 'literature' that such connotations are consciously a pregnant part of the message of the text. We look to read between the lines in order to detect levels of significant and develop more complex interpretations.
If this is true in general, then the Literary Skills proposed below are what we demand to be teaching our students, over and higher up the Bones Reading Skills (q.v. - grasping outline meaning) and the Key Reading Skills (q.v. - grasping the detail of the outline meaning). In other words, Literary Reading Skills are the most sophisticated level of reading, involving grasping complex texts in all their complication.
Note that the Literary Skills apply the same bones procedures as the Basic and Cardinal skills (e.thou. summary, scanning) - but in different order, for deliberately different purposes (e.g. scanning non only for the basic overall message, but in order to study and define the imaginative world of the text).
In club to teach and develop the skills of a sophisticated approach to literature, have a look at the folio The tasks toolkit , which proposes a range of specific tasks to encourage students to read methodically.
Reading well
I propose below a mode of envisaging the procedure of reading closely and methodically. This involves four stages, in the sense that these stages follow the sequence in fourth dimension of grasping a text ... but they can also be seen equally levels, in that they represent a movement from surface understanding to deep understanding.
Basic Reading
Reading involves imagining - we form a model of what is happening, of what is described, of ideas - and responding - we react with surprise or curiosity or (dis)agreement. If these don't happen, it'southward hard to recall that we are engaged at all (you lot know those moments when you're tired or distracted, and you lot suddenly realise you oasis't the faintest idea of what the last page meant?). Forming that model involves skimming & reviewing - new details appear and we retrieve -
"...ah yes, Alan was the ane who ... that scene in the railway station ... and then that'southward why the dog was then agitated ..."
Reflective reading
As the pattern of the text forms, nosotros start selecting fundamental details -
"... all these references to how dark the room is ... 'miles meandering with a mazy motility' - lots of 'm's ... ever goes back to importance of the family..."
The key details demand attending and and so nosotros start scanning for more details that relate -
"... 'dark'? but she's chosen 'dark' also ... now he'southward inverse his point of view ... where did he say he was on the Th dark?..."
- and such scanning volition involve tracking & filing of the data we take.
Analytical reading
From the start, equally we read, nosotros will have been interpreting figurative effects and interpreting meaning (at whatever level of composure) - and if nosotros then choose to recall almost the piece of writing critically, we will exist analysing and assessing the figurative effects and the meaning.
Assembling
Finally, we volition wish to make full sense of all that nosotros have understood through the previous three stages past reviewing, revising, relating our impressions - we will think of assembling our ideas into some form of coherent model of the text. More specifically, if we are reading for a specific purpose (writing a critical written report or researching for a report), we will have to think of assembling the model nosotros take formed into some form of writing.
The diagram
That clarification of the reading procedure can exist reformulated equally the post-obit list ... or information technology tin can be viewed graphically, as shown to the right, with arrows indicating the flow of attention and interaction between the diverse elements.
Bones Reading
Imagining & responding
Skimming & reviewing
Reflective Reading
Selecting cardinal details
Scanning ... Tracking & filing
Belittling Reading
Interpreting figurative effects & meaning
Analysing effects & meaning
Assembling
Writing critical commentary
(or, presenting ideas orally)
Reading well, examined
Anyhow, the above is the overall arroyo or system or structure that informs the view of Literary Skills in this site ... only some aspects need to exist examined in a piddling more item.
Imagining & responding
We all desire our students to respond to what they read, and to use their imagination, merely what does this mean, specifically? Consider the following listing of aspects:-
When reading fiction, a good reader should ...
- live the experiences - accept the story seriously, react every bit if information technology were existent - just how practise we encourage that? Clearly, choosing the correct story to start with is fundamental - but also regular, open up discussion ... "What do you lot recall and so far? What's going to happen next? What did you feel when she said...? Have you ever felt like that?"
- share sensual description - the senses are the most common ground of fiction - we may never have been in a war, only we take all felt cold. Encouraging this must again involve discussion - (a) strengthening the associations of the words used - "What does cold feel like?", and (b) eliciting connections to imagine a fuller flick - "It's 'hot' ... only which other details in the paragraph back up and develop the impression of rut?"
- use empathy - ' the capacity to put yourself in someone else's skin' - but how do nosotros teach and stimulate the ability to do that? It's a skill that we rather take for granted, simply we shouldn't - it'southward a complex process, and requires endeavour and commitment. Run into files on 'The Curious Incident...' for farther thoughts.
When reading all texts, a skillful reader should ...
- class patterns actively - fundamentally, this involves 'reviewing' regularly - 'the story so far'. Such reviewing requires * an power to grasp structure ("what is that paragraph virtually?"), * practice in effective summary (run into Thinking Skills > Detecting patterns ), and * an constructive mental filing system. Such reviewing should take place in short texts just every bit much equally in extended reading.
- grasp coherence - this will of course depend on how well the reader has formed basic patterns to begin with - 'coherence' means seeing overall patterns in the detailed patterns.
- anticipate the adjacent development - this follows from the grasp of the first two skills - if we have a grasp of where nosotros accept been (anaphora - back-referencing), we will also be curious almost where nosotros are going (cataphora - forward-referencing). This is the basis of narrative drive, but it is also important in grasping skilled argument, and of understanding much of Rhetoric (see below).
Interpreting figurative effects
This is a vast field, and at this indicate I merely wish to indicate the overall structure of various areas which will be covered. What is meant by 'figurative effects' is the many tricks, techniques, conventions & forms that writers apply to attain effective Presentation + Persuasion = Communication.
For convenience, I place many, simply not all of these under the heading of Rhetoric - and suggest iii principal headings:-
- Rhetoric of Structure - Grammer-based + Argument-based
- Rhetoric of Imagination - Reference + Comparing + Representatives + Dissimilarity
- Rhetoric of Transaction - Direct Encounter/Accost + Attitude + Irony + Judgement
Take a await at the page Rhetoric which gives bones caption of these categories; and the page Didactics Rhetoric 1 provides suggested selections of such techniques for classes of Basic, Middling and Advanced levels.
Interpreting meaning
Obviously, 'interpreting meaning' overlaps with 'interpreting figurative effects' - yous don't identify a metaphor, for instance, without because what information technology means (indeed, you probably wouldn't even exist able to place the metaphor without at least some idea of its significance). To distinguish the two areas implies a change of emphasis - you lot pass through interpreting figurative furnishings, and focus on the overall significance, or 'point', of the text. I suggest the following main areas:-
Impacts - fifty-fifty a hasty first reading of a text will go out impressions, and the meliorate the text, the more singled-out and distinguished will exist the touch(south) - "...wow, he's aroused! ... 'soft city' - that'southward a dandy phrase ... she's obviously an attractive person ..." These showtime impressions are ordinarily useful because they are the genuine starting points of an exploration of the text. A skilful writer will have created those impacts deliberately, as the 'headlines' of the text. Even inexperienced, unsophisticated student readers have such reactions - they may non have the 'right' ones, the ones that the teacher thinks are obvious, but their showtime impressions are where we should beginning from.
Images & scenes / Character / Plot - in fiction, impressions about these elements probably emerge commonly in this order - the assembling of structures of meaning takes fourth dimension, so we beginning work out what is happening correct now, and then we discover who'southward doing information technology, and finally why. Although ... Anthony Burgess opens 1 novel similar this (if I call up rightly) "On my ninety-start birthday, I was in bed with my catamite when the archbishop called..." - which, if you think well-nigh it, covers all three.
References & allusions + symbols - the subtle details, which need to be studied, even researched. To be more precise, I mean references & allusions that reach out of the text to the real world, symbols that create structures of pregnant within the text.
Indicate - shorthand for 'the overall meaning(s)' of the novel, its statement, and/or what it sets out to do (which might be simply to entertain). [** Have a expect at the page Wise & Foolish which deals direct with this idea of 'indicate' ]
The work & its context - knowledge which will need to exist researched: when the book was written, when and how - which may in plow may tell us something virtually 'what for'. And remind us that at that place is e'er a deviation betwixt the author's context and the reader's.
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Source: https://www.thinkib.net/englishb/page/703/literary-reading-skills
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