Weekend Prompt: Dive Into Reading
This week, we’ve talked about the nuts and bolts of reading. Now it’s time to put theory into action.
Weekend Prompt:
Do the following steps to analyze a piece of short form literature. Don’t worry about making your answers to the questions cohesive or making them “look pretty” in a neat little essay. Right now, just jot down notes and focus on sharpening those reading chops.
Step 1:
Choose a piece of short form literature. If you’ve already been reading a piece all week in response to Monday’s post, use that piece. If you’re just joining in today, no worries. Pick something short and read it through a couple of times before you start the analysis. (No highlighters and no taking notes on this step. Just read.)
Step 2:
Now break out your pen and highlighter and read the piece one more time through but focus on collecting information.
• What is the author saying?
• What point is the author making in the piece?
• What is the tone or “attitude” of the piece?
Think like a reporter and ask those basic W questions: who, what, when, where. Don’t worry about why or how just yet, though.
Step 3:
Once you’ve got a handle on the basic information, you can move into a more philosophical mode and start interpreting the piece. This is when you start asking why.
• Why is the author writing this piece?
• What does the author mean when he or she says [fill in the blank]?
• What is it making me feel and why is it making me respond that way?
Step 4:
Now we finally come to the reading-like-a-writer stage of the process. Or as I like to call it “reading like a revolutionary.” Think about your response to the piece and try to determine the following:
• How does the author get you to respond in this way?
• What techniques does he or she use? What works and what doesn’t?
• How can you apply some of these techniques to your own writing?