Text Marking & Reading Strategies

Clarifying

To clarify means to make something clearer, or try to understand. In order to clarify, you can:

• Use what you know to figure it out

• Look for clues in the text, like definitions or words, pictures, or the context

• Make a reasonable guess based on what the text says

• Ask someone for help or consult other resources

Visualize

To visualize means to try to picture something in your head, either because you’re familiar with it or because you could use your imagination about it. To visualize, you can:

• Use text to think of or imagine what something looks like or what’s going on

• Use the text to draw a picture, graph, or chart

Predict

To predict is to use the text and your own ideas to make a good guess about what may happen next. Sometimes it happens naturally, like in a mystery, and the reader should always keep going to see if the prediction is right.

Important Idea

Knowing what the important idea is combines reading the whole thing and being able to state (in the author’s words or your words) the main concept the author wants the audience to remember. There could be more than one important idea. You may need to use other reading skills, but to find it, you can:

• Look at the text itself - does the author italicize, underline, or highlight it for you?

• Mark it as you’re going, because you felt it was important as you read it

• Look back after you finish and think about what sticks with you or what you remember most

Connect

While reading, each reader brings individual and common experiences to the new text, and makes connections between the experiences and the text. Examples of connections include:

• Text to Self: “This reminds me of when I ….” Or “That’s like my relative ….” Or “Same.”

• Text to Text: “That’s like that movie where …” or “This reminds me of that other story …”

• Text to World: “This is like that historical event …” or “This character is like Rosa Parks …”

React/Reflect

A reader has reactions or feelings to what they read, a twist in the story, a character’s actions, etc. These feelings are good for indicating that what just happened may be important, or that the author WANTS the reader to have that reaction.

Asking Questions

As they read, good readers hear questions they would ask the characters, or the author, or other readers. Being able to ask and answer good questions shows a greater understanding. (ADD HOTS QUESTION CHART)

Activating Background Knowledge

Every time you read, you bring your own experience and knowledge to the text. Sometimes a writer is counting on you knowing information or having experienced something as you read, and needs you to use that when reading.

Making Inferences

An inference is a logical guess. The reader sometimes has to guess when reading, about basic information or more complex ideas. An inference takes what the reader already knows and combines it with the text. (you+text=inference)

Diction and Tone

Key Terms:

• Diction: choice and use of words in speech or writing

• Denotation: the explicit or direct meaning of a word as found in a dictionary

• Connotation: associations implied by a specific word (positive, negative, neutral)

• Tone: the writer’s attitude toward their topic, usually conveyed through diction

• Author’s Purpose: the author’s reason or intention for writing and the way it is conveyed to achieve that meaning

Literary Terms

Parts of a Story and Writing

Characterization

The ability to bring the appearance and personality of people to life for the reader. Readers understand characters through their actions, speech, thoughts, appearance, and how other characters interact with them.

Protagonist (characterization)

The principal or central character, usually commanding the most interest and sympathy of the reader.

Antagonist (characterization)

The character who stands in direct opposition to or conflict with the central character. One type of antagonist is a villain, who is a completely unadmirable figure.

Dynamic/Static (characterization)

A dynamic character is one who changes significantly during the course of a story, usually showing growth or decline. A static character is unchanging, but not necessarily less human.

FOIL

A character who, by contrast, points up the qualities or characteristics of another. Usually foils are described in pairs.

Narration

The telling of a story

First Person (narration)

The author creates a persona which experiences the story he/she is telling, either as a major character participating in the action, or a minor character observing from the sidelines. (I, me, etc.)

Second Person (narration)

Not often used, this narration uses the pronoun “you” to insert the reader into the action or feelings of the story. (Think “choose your own adventure” stories.) (You, your, etc.)

Third Person Limited (narration)

A narrator standing outside the action recounts the story through the thoughts and actions of a single character in the story. (He, she, they, etc. - but follows one character)

Third Person Omniscient (narration)

The narrator is able to see, hear, or know, and reveal everything about all characters in multiple locations. (He, she, they, etc, - but follows multiple characters and locations)

Setting

The locale, period of time, and social environment of a work, which can directly contribute to the mood or atmosphere and can be a dominant influence on the lives of the characters.

Plot

The sequence of events of the story. (Five main components)

Exposition (plot)

The beginning, and presents the characters, setting, and the conflict.

Inciting incident (plot) Problem

Something that kicks off the story by changing the circumstances.

Rising Action

The characters’ attempts to resolve the conflict, building the story tension.

Climax

The turning point of the high point of the action. It is the moment at which one side of the conflict “wins".”

Falling Action/Resolution

The results of the characters’ actions, and the ending of the story.

Conflict

The struggle between opposing forces that determines the action of the plot. Longer works often have more than one conflict. Examples of external conflict, where the character is in conflict with an outside force, are:

• struggle against nature

• struggle against the supernatural

• struggle against another character

• struggle against technology

• struggle against one’s society

• OR an internal struggle is one within the character

Symbolism

The use of objects, actions, or characters meant to be taken both literally and as representative of some higher, more complex, and abstract significance that lies beyond ordinary meaning.

Foreshadowing

A clue in the beginning or middle of the story about what will happen later in the story. Example: She shivered. I asked her what was wrong. “Oh nothing, nothing,” she said, “somebody just walked over my grave".”

Irony

A reversal or unexpected twist. It’s the difference between the appearance and the reality.

• In situational irony, a situation that ends up in quite a different way than what is generally anticipated. Example: You laugh at a person who slipped stepping on a banana peel, and the next thing you know, you’ve slipped too.

• In verbal irony, words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words (like sarcasm). Example: The New manager is as friendly as a rattlesnake.

• In dramatic irony, the audience knows more than the characters. Example: When the movie watchers know what’s in the basement, but the character unknowingly reaches for the door knob.

Imagery

Language referring to something that can be perceived through one or more of the senses, such as sight, sound, smell, taste, and tactile or feel, specifically the making of “pictures in words.”

Figurative Language

Includes expressions that make comparisons or associations meant to be interpreted imaginatively rather than literally. Figurative language includes: hyperbole, simile, metaphor, oxymoron, personification, and allusion.

Hyperbole (figurative language)

Obvious exaggeration or overstatement. “This bag weighs a TON.”

Simile (figurative language)

Uses like, as, or as if in order to compare or link two essentially different things. “That kid is as fast as lightning.”

Metaphor (figurative language)

An implied analogy in which one thing is imaginatively compared to another. “Your room is a pigsty.”

Oxymoron

Uses two contradictory words or phrases in a single expression, giving the effect of a condensed paradox. “After she insulted her boss, there was a deafening silence.”

Personification (figurative language)

When human characteristics or sensibilities are attributed to animals, plants, or objects. “The sun smiled down on the first day of our vacation.”

Allusion (figurative language)

A reference to historical or fictional characters, places, events, or writings that the author assumes the reader will recognize. Allusions may refer to mythology, religion, literature, history or art. “He’s practically Romeo he’s so romantic.”

Diction

The choice and use of words in speech or writing.

Denotation

The explicit or direct meaning of a word as found in a dictionary.

Connotation

The association(s) implied by a specific word.

Tone

The writer’s attitude toward their topic, usually conveyed through diction.

Author’s Purpose

The author’s reason or intention for writing and the way it is conveyed to achieve that meaning.

Author’s Tone and Purpose

One skill important to reading is to consider the author’s attitude towards the topic and/or the audience (tone), then consider his/her/their purpose for the text and the audience.

Motif

An idea that gets repeated in a text. By coming back to the same idea, the author may be making a point about that idea.