Reading Handbook

The Reading Handbook provides information that may help you with your reading assignments, not only for your English classes, but for all subject area classes. These pages are unified by their emphasis on:

• Discovering a purpose for reading
• Identifying patterns in a text
• Using the behaviors of excellent readers

Resources and Links

The subpages linked below and in the sidebar will help you with specific reading tasks, such as:

• Reading Full-Length Works (Fiction, Memoirs, Drama, Non-Fiction)
• Reading Shorter Works (Poetry, Articles)
• Reading Textbooks
• Responding to Literature

Critical Reading Resources This link will take you to some internet sources that provide useful preparation for standardized tests, including the SAT.

Active Reading Strategies

Responding to Literature

Reading your textbook

In addition to your assigned class Responses to Literature, you will also take the Connecticut SAT in the junior year, which tests students' ability in close and critical reading. As you are preparing to take the CT SAT reading sections, keep these general tips in mind:

Tips for Active Reading and Annotation

In class you have learned how to effectively annotate a text. To completely answer the questions you have to read the story actively. As you read and annotate, consider:

• Revealing details. What happens beneath the plot or between the lines?
• Initial characterization and character development, with special attention to the language the author uses. How does what happens to the character influence his/her development?
• Pattern of events. How is the story structured to move towards a resolution?
• Identifying themes. How do the conflicts and issues in the story comment on universal experiences? In other words, how do they link to a theme that is more than one word?

1. Pattern of Development

Analyze the pattern of details and the internal and external conflicts in the story. What ideas or themes does the author develop? Use evidence from the story to support your argument.

Analysis indicates critical choice of details plus precise examination of language. When interpreting the significance of patterns, follow the following steps:

1) Look for any repetition of phrases, significant details, or ideas.

2) Select key patterns that span the arch of the story.

3) Consider how the pattern of details and conflicts/tensions creates an understanding of theme.

4) Finally, draw conclusions about the theme by putting evidence together.

Move away from the idea of a theme as a word or phrase (e.g. human nature). Instead, a theme is a comment on that universal experience/topic (i.e. what is the author saying about human nature in this particular story?).

2. Character Development

During the course of this story, the narrator undergoes a major transformation. What new understanding does his/her experience help him/her reach? What are the key catalysts for this change? Use evidence from the story to support the stages of character development.

When understanding character development, follow the following steps:

1) Find text evidence that indicates the initial state of the character.

2) At what points in the story does the character begin to develop? How does he/she change over time? What catalysts cause this change?

3) What evidence do you see that supports the character’s final transformation?

3. Literary Elements

Choose one of the following quotations and analyze how the author uses literary elements such as metaphor, imagery, motif, and/or symbolism to effectively develop the theme of the story.

When analyzing the author’s use of literary elements, follow the following steps:

1) Make sure you know the definition of the terms metaphor, imagery, motif and symbolism.

2) Take apart the quotation to identify important details, but don’t forget to consider the meaning of the quotation as a whole.

3) Identify one or more examples of these literary elements in the quotation you select.

4) Ask yourself how this quotation relates to a big idea in the story.

5) Use your observations to analyze how the author effectively uses literary elements to develop theme.