Understanding Vocabulary

When you read an unfamiliar word, you need to figure out its meaning based on how it is used. You can use the following context clues to guess a meaning.

Inferring and Analyzing Theme

Have you heard the expression, "You can't see the forest for the trees"? Sometimes it's easy to see the details but hard to make out the big picture. So far, you've taken a close look at details such as character and conflict as well as literary and poetic devices. Now you need to take a step back to see the larger pattern, or theme, contained within those details. Theme refers to the meaning of a work—what it says about life. Finding theme can be as challenging as seeing the forest, but you have multiple paths you can follow.

Inferring Themes

Just as every tree and creature is part of a given forest, so every character, description, action, conversation, and literary or poetic device in a work contributes to the theme of the work. The writer has chosen all parts purposely to create a larger meaning. So, you can follow any of these pathways to discover themes.

For example, note how analyzing the parts of "Their Eyes Were Watching God" can lead to discovering themes (in italics):

This rural Florida farm in the early 1900s is a halfway point between the world ruled by white men (where Joe Stark made his money) and the community that African Americans were setting up (where Joe Stark intends to become a "big voice"). Janie Mae can stay put on the farm, move to the white man's world to seek her fortune, or move to the black man's world to do so. The decision that faces her is not unlike that facing most modern people, whether to stay home in a familiar middle place or venture into a very different world.

• Character: How does this person represent people in general? How does this character change during the story and why?

  Janie Mae is young and hardworking, with little experience beyond her farm outside of the family members who have variously passed her around as she came of age, and the man to whom she is married. Like all young people, she has dreams of exploring a larger world, dreams that will never be realized if she stays where she is. Perhaps she represents the theme that to find your true self, you must leave home and risk everything.

• Conflict: What sort of conflict is this (person vs. self, vs. other, vs. society, vs. nature, vs. supernatural, vs. machine)? What does this conflict tell us about life?

  Janie Mae is torn between the security of her farm life and the possibilities presented by Joe Stark—money, fine clothes, leisure, and most importantly, having a "big voice." She can't make up her own mind (person vs. self) and also would face serious social consequences if she runs off with this stranger (person vs. society). Janie Mae would like to be someone rather than no one, and Joe promises to let her reap the benefits of his success. But Joe can't make her into someone. Like all of us, Janie Mae has to make herself whatever she will become.

• Setting: How does the place and time shape the characters? How does it shape the story? What does it say about our place and time?

The setting of Janie Mae's farm is absolutely critical. It is halfway between the white'man's world where Joe has made his fortune and the new African-American community where he and she hope to become important. The farm is the world that Janie Mae knows, closely in contact with nature and hard labor and removed from the "far horizon" she dreams of. In this way, the setting represents the central conflict that she faces—whether to remain in the familiar confines of farm and family or to venture into the unknown with this slick-talking stranger.

• Plot: What does this sequence of events teach the main character?

  Janie Mae's conversations with Joe Starks paint a picture of a larger world that she wishes to be part of. She imagines herself sitting on a porch, enjoying potatoes that someone else had planted for her. She imagines a life of prestige and ease that starkly contrasts the farm life she has. These conversations awaken in Janie Mae desires she didn't know she had. Perhaps the only way to eventually find herself is first to lose herself.

• Literary Devices: What symbols and metaphors does the writer use and why?

  Joe Starks' clothing symbolizes his status, relative wealth, and ambition. The water pump that Janie Mae vigorously works to catch Joe's attention, symbolizes their conversation together. Janie and Joe mix the cool water with syrup from the barn and sit and sip and talk about the future. The sweetened water shows how simple social interchanges can lead to relationships, which can in turn lead to a whole world of other possibilities.

Analyzing Literary and Poetic Devices

Authors and poets use a number of devices to create their works. You can analyze these devices to more fully understand a story or poem.

Analyzing Devices in Literature

Writers use narration, description, action, dialogue, and a host of other devices as they create their stories.

Analyzing Characters

Almost all literature contains characters, the answer to who? in the 5 W's and H. Characters in literature are just like people in real life. You can describe them physically—their facial expressions, body posture, hair color, eye color, build, race, age, and sex. You can describe them psychologically—personality, intellect, education, role in society, desires, and fears. In fact, what characters desire and what they fear tend to be the sources of conflict for them, striving to get what they want and overcome what they dread.

Analyzing Characters in Literature

Sometimes authors describe characters outright, but often they show who characters are through their words and deeds. Your job as the reader is to analyze characters by finding outright evidence in the text and inferring other traits through dialogue and action.

Closely Reading Literature and Poetry

Start your close read by carefully working through the text. Then, you can analyze the work by thinking about the parts of it. You've seen how the 5 W's and H relate to the key parts of any story. Now you'll use these parts to analyze a piece of literature.

Reading Literature

You can analyze literature by focusing on these common elements of stories:

• Characters Who are the main people involved? Are they protagonists (struggling for something) or antagonists (struggling against something) or supporting characters?
• Setting Where and when does the literature take place? How do the place and time affect what is happening in the story?
• Conflict What is the problem that the character faces? How does the conflict arise from the person's desires and fears?
• Plot What series of events brings the character into confrontation with the conflict? Does the character succeed? How do the events change the person?
• Theme What does the literature have to say about life in general? What is the deeper meaning of the work?

You'll find these elements not just in works of fiction but also in biography and historical nonfiction. For example, the following reflection by Mark Twain contains all of these elements to one degree or another. Think about them as you read the literature and prepare to answer questions about each part afterward.

Warm-Up for Reading and Writing About Literature

© Thoughtful Learning 2018

Numerous tests in high school assess your ability to read and understand literature and poetry. The Common Core assessments for high school English, the ACT and SAT, and the exam for AP English Literature and Composition ask you to read works of literature, answer questions about them, and write thoughtful responses. The activities in this unit will help you develop the skills you need to succeed on these assessments. If you’d like to use these skills on a simulated assessment, see the unit “Practice Test for Reading and Writing About Literature.”

What Is Literature?

We all tell stories—what happened during fifth hour, how the team came back 14 points to win, what the doctor said about your broken arm. . . . These everyday stories help us understand our lives and what is happening around us.

Over thousands of years, some of the best stories have risen to the top as "literature." Despite the lofty title, literature performs the same basic function as everyday storytelling. It helps readers understand what it's like to be alive—where we have been and where we are going. Reading literature also allows you to spend time with some of the most amazing storytellers who have ever lived.

Thinking About Stories

When reporters go out searching for news stories, they try to answer the 5 W's and H. You can use these same questions to think about the basic parts of any story, fiction or nonfiction:

Writing for Assessment

A writing assessment gives you a short time to write in response to a prompt.

To do so, you should use a shortened form of the writing process:

Prewriting (5 Minutes)

Answer the PAST questions.

Purpose? Define imagination and knowledge, tell how they relate, explain Einstein's position and state and support your own.

Audience? The reader of the test

Subject? Imagination and knowledge

Type? Position/argument essay

Write a focus statement.

Imagination and knowledge are like energy and matter: the knowledge is the solid stuff, and the imagination sets it into motion.

Analyzing Writing Prompts

Often tests contain writing prompts that you must respond to. A writing prompt is a specific set of instructions that you must follow to write a well-targeted essay. If you write an excellent response that does not answer the prompt, you will score poorly. To succeed on writing assessments, you must start by analyzing the writing prompt.  You can use the PAST questions:

• Purpose? Why am I writing? (To argue for a position? To compare two concepts? To define key terms?)
• Audience? Who is my reader? (Tester? Classmates? Other citizens?)
• Subject? What topic should I write about? (A problem that must be solved? A key period or discovery?)
• Type? What type of writing should I create? (Position essay? Letter to the editor? Proposal?)

Sample Writing Prompt

Answers to PAST Questions

• Purpose?

  To explain Hawthorne's position and state and support my own position using logic and evidence

• Audience?

  Hawthorne as well as readers of the test responses

• Subject?

  Human societies (specifically Utopias) and the problems that they face

• Type?

  Position/argument essay

Understanding Vocabulary

When you read an unfamiliar word, you need to figure out its meaning based on how it is used. You can use the following context clues to guess a meaning.

Finding Supporting Details

Each controlling sentence in a text is supported with different types of details. Note how the following thesis statement is supported by different details.

Different types of details provide different types of support. Using a variety of details lets you fully elaborate an idea, answering the reader's many questions about it.

• Facts ground a point in reality by providing verifiable evidence.
• Statistics quantify a claim, telling how much, how often, or to what extent.
• Definitions clarify terms, helping readers gain the vocabulary they need to fully grasp the concept.
• Examples provide specific instances of a general concept, showing how an idea works in reality.
• Descriptions allow readers to experience an idea through sensory details—sights, sounds, scents, pressure, temperature, texture, and so on.
• Anecdotes illustrate a point using one of the most potent strategies for making meaning—stories.
• Quotations allow readers to hear directly from experts and others involved in the topic.