Make inferences in reading

We can apply the same things we've been learning about drawing conclusions when we look at pictures or graphs to our reading comprehension. Making inferences in reading will combine our reading comprehension skills with our ability to make inferences. Making inferences is essential to being a strong reader. Authors  cannot possibly tell you every single thing you need to know to follow the story or the essay. You will have to use your skills of drawing strong conclusions to help you understand the reading to the fullest. Here are some tips to help you make the leap from making inferences in pictures and graphs to making inferences in reading:

1. Identify the details that are relevant to making an inference.

2. Consider the important context. 

3. Make logical connections with your knowledge base.

(excerpt from) A Camping Trip

by Hamid Garland

It was the fifteenth of June, and the sun glazed down upon the dry cornfield as if it had a spite against Lincoln Stewart, who was riding a gayly painted new sulky corn-plow, guiding the shovels with his feet. The corn was about knee-high and rustled softly, almost as if whispering, not yet large enough to speak aloud.

Working all day in a level field like this, with the sun burning one's neck brown as a leather glove, is apt to make one dream of cool river pools, where the water snakes wiggle to and fro, and the kingfishers fly above the bright ripples in which the rock bass love to play.

It was about four o'clock, and Lincoln was tired. His neck ached, his toes were swollen, and his tongue called for a drink of water. He got off the plow, after turning the horses' heads to the faint western breeze, and took a seat on the fence in the shade of a small popple tree on which a king-bird had a nest.

Somebody was galloping up the road with a regular rise and fall in the saddle which showed the perfect horseman and easy rider. It was Milton Jennings.

"Hello, Lincoln!" shouted Milton.

"Hello, Milt," Lincoln returned. "Why ain't you at home workin' like an honest man?"

"Better business on hand. I've come clear over here to-day to see you—"

"Well, here I am."

"Let's go to Clear Lake."

Lincoln stared hard at him.

"D'ye mean it?"

"You bet I do! I can put in a horse. Bert Jenks will lend us his boat—put it right on in place of the wagon box—and we can borrow Captain Knapp's tent. We'll get Rance to go, too."

"I'm with you," said Lincoln, leaping down, his face aglow with the idea. "But won't you go up and break it gently to the boss? He's got his mind kind o' set on my goin' through this corn again. When'll we start?"

"Let's see—to-day is Wednesday—we ought to get off on Monday."

"Well, now, if you don't mind, Milt, I'd like to have you go up and see what Father says."

"I'll fix him," said Milton. "Where is he?"

"Right up the road, mending fence."

Lincoln was so tickled he not only leaped the fence, but sprang into the plow seat from behind and started on another round, singing, showing how instantly hope of play can lighten a boy's task. But when he came back to the fence, Milton was not in sight, and his heart fell—the outlook was not so assuring.

It was nearly an hour later when Milton came riding back. Lincoln looked up and saw him wave his hand and heard his shout. The victory was won. Mr. Stewart had consented.

Lincoln whooped with such wild delight that the horses, swerving to the right, plowed up two rows of corn for several rods before they could be brought back into place.

"It's all O.K.," Milton called. "But I've got to come over with my team and help you go through the corn the other way."

From that on, nothing else was thought of or talked of. Each night the four boys got together at Mr. Jennings's house, each one bringing things that he thought he needed. They had never looked upon a sheet of water larger than the mill-pond on the Cedar River, and the cool face of that beautiful lake, of which they had heard so much, allured them.

***

Reading Comprehension Questions

1. What time of year does this story take place, and what clues from the text support your answer?

2. What task is Lincoln Stewart performing when the story begins?

3. What plan does Milton Jennings propose to Lincoln, and who else is involved in the plan?

4. How does Lincoln feel about the idea of going to Clear Lake, and how is this shown in the text?

Inference Questions

1. Why might Lincoln have been hesitant about Milton asking his father for permission?

2. What does the author suggest about the boys’ lives through their excitement about visiting Clear Lake?

3. Why do you think Milton agrees to help Lincoln with his farming chores after getting permission for the trip?

4. What can you infer about the boys’ level of experience with camping or large bodies of water?

5. Why does the author include the detail about Lincoln plowing up two rows of corn in excitement?

Check your answers in the Module 5.3 section of the Practice Answer Key.

A Coat By William Butler Yeats

I Made my song a coat

Covered with embroideries

Out of old mythologies

From heel to throat;

But the fools caught it,

Wore it in the world's eyes

As though they'd wrought it.

Song, let them take it

For there's more enterprise

In walking naked.

Let’s work through the poem "A Coat" by William Butler Yeats and make inferences step by step.

Step 1: Understand the Literal Meaning

On the surface, Yeats is saying he created a “coat” (metaphorically, his work or his art) using intricate details from myths and stories. However, others (the "fools") took his creation, claimed it as their own, and displayed it publicly. In the end, he declares that he will abandon such embellishments and pursue simplicity ("walking naked").

Step 2: Look for Key Details and Patterns

• "Covered with embroideries / Out of old mythologies": The "coat" represents his poetry or art, made rich with cultural and historical elements.

• "The fools caught it, / Wore it in the world's eyes": People misused or misrepresented his work, possibly taking credit for it or distorting its meaning.

• "For there’s more enterprise / In walking naked": Yeats rejects his ornate style, choosing raw, honest expression over elaborate creation.

Step 3: Examine Emotion and Mood

The tone of the poem shifts from frustration (with the "fools") to empowerment as Yeats reclaims his work by embracing simplicity.

Step 4: Consider Purpose and Themes

The poem explores themes of artistic integrity, personal growth, and the rejection of unnecessary complexity. Yeats seems to suggest that simplicity and authenticity hold greater value than overly ornate or misunderstood creations.

Step 5: Make Inferences

1. Why does Yeats compare his song (poetry) to a coat?

   • A coat is something worn and displayed. This suggests Yeats viewed his art as something visible and open to interpretation, but also as a creation he made to cover or protect himself.

2. What might “fools” represent?

   • "Fools" could represent critics, imitators, or audiences who misunderstand or misuse his work, claiming it as their own or distorting its intent.

3. Why does Yeats choose to “walk naked”?

   • Walking naked symbolizes abandoning embellishment and pretense in favor of raw honesty and vulnerability. He may feel that true art doesn’t need external decoration to have value.

4. How does Yeats feel about his earlier artistic style?

   • Yeats might feel disillusioned with his previous work's dependence on mythology and ornate elements, seeing it as overly complicated and susceptible to misinterpretation.

More Questions to Make Inferences

1. What does the "coat" symbolize in the poem?

2. Why do you think Yeats refers to the other people as "fools"?

3. How does the phrase “walking naked” reflect a shift in Yeats’s artistic philosophy?

4. What might Yeats be saying about the relationship between an artist and their audience?

5. How does the use of “mythologies” influence the reader’s understanding of the "coat"?

The Fly   By William Blake

    Little Fly,

    Thy summer's play

    My thoughtless hand

    Has brushed away.

    Am not I

    A fly like thee?

    Or art not thou

    A man like me?

    For I dance

    And drink, and sing,

    Till some blind hand

    Shall brush my wing.

    If thought is life

    And strength and breath

    And the want

    Of thought is death;

    Then am I

    A happy fly,

    If I live,

    Or if I die. 

Comprehension Questions

1. What happens to the fly in the first stanza?

2. How does the speaker compare the fly’s life to his own?

3. What does the speaker question about thought and life in the fourth stanza?

4. How does the poem end, and what conclusion does the speaker reach?

Inference Questions

1. What does the "thoughtless hand" in the first stanza reveal about human actions?

2. Why does the speaker compare himself to a “fly”? What deeper meaning might this have?

3. How does the “blind hand” reflect the poem’s theme of mortality?

4. What is the speaker suggesting about the relationship between thought and existence?

5. How might the speaker's acceptance of life and death influence how we view our own lives?

Read the short passage below and use your skills of reading comprehension and observation to answer the first set of questions and use your inference skills to answer the second set of questions. 

The passage below from The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard, is about writing a book.

Words to know:

hie you: hurry   cache: a place where supplies are hidden

To find a honey tree, first catch a bee. Catch a bee when its legs are heavy with pollen; then it is ready for home. It is simple enough to catch a bee on a flower: hold a cup or glass above the bee, and when it flies up, cap the cup with a piece of cardboard. Carry the bee to a nearby open spot—best an elevated one—release it, and watch where it goes. Keep your eyes on it as long as you can see it, and hie you° to that last known place. Wait there until you see another bee; catch it, release it, and watch. Bee after bee will lead toward the honey tree, until you see the final bee enter the tree. Thoreau describes this process in his journals. So a book leads its writer. You may wonder how you start, how you catch the first one. What do you use for bait?

You have no choice. One bad winter in the Arctic, and not too long ago, an Algonquin woman and her baby were left alone after everyone else in their winter camp had starved. . . . The woman walked from the camp where everyone had died, and found at a lake a cache°. The cache contained one small fishhook. It was simple to rig a line but she had no bait, and no hope of bait. The baby cried. She took a knife and cut a strip from her own thigh. She fished with the worm of her own flesh and caught a jackfish; she fed the child and herself. Of course she saved the fish gut for bait. She lived alone at the lake, on fish, until spring, when she walked out again and found people.

Reading Comprehension Questions

1. In the first paragraph, what is the author trying to help you find?

2. In the second paragraph, what does the Algonquin woman find to survive?

3. According to the details in the second paragraph, what does the woman use as bait?

Inference Questions

1. In the first paragraph, why does the author say, "So a book leads its writer." What does that mean?

2. Why does the author tell the story of the Algonquin woman? How does that story connect with the idea in the first paragraph?

3. If these are analogies for writing, how do you think the author feels about writing?

Words to Know From How I Celebrate Life on the Day of the Dead, by Linda Gonzálezthe 

Antepasados

• (ahn-tay-pah-sah-dōs), n.

• Ancestors; those from previous generations in a family line.

Calaveras

• (kah-lah-veh-rahs), n.

• Decorative or artistic representations of skulls, often associated with Día de los Muertos.

Día de los Muertos

• (dē-ah dā lōs mwĕr-tōs), n.

• A Mexican holiday honoring deceased loved ones with celebrations, food, and altars.

Sugar skulls

• (shoo-gər skŭlz), n.

• Colorful, decorative candy skulls used in Día de los Muertos celebrations.

How I Celebrate Life on the Day of the Dead 

By Linda González

Every year as November 1 approaches, I do the math to remember how long ago my father passed away on Día de los Muertos. This year, I dutifully pulled up my calculator and subtracted 1996 from 2017. Twenty-one years. And then the obvious hits me. I can always know how long it has been since he passed on to his next life by subtracting one year from my twins’ age. They are 22 and were just a year old when their abuelo died. I remember carrying Gina down the aisle behind the casket, her and Teo’s new life blooming while that same year Tot’s had faded.

I set up my altar this week, pulling out the pictures of my dearly departed and adding new ones from this year. The first step is always laying out the cross-stitched mantle with years of stains and a dark mark from when a candle burned too hot. I tape papel picado above the altar, remembering this ritual is not a dirge; it is an opening of the veil to celebrate the lives that touched me and my comunidades. It is a time to think about why I miss them and ponder how to keep them alive in the present moment.

I imagine my dad’s disappointed spirit hovering over the Dodgers as they lost in the World Series. I invoke my mom’s stovetop magic as I figure out what to do with a bag of zucchini that must be cooked tonight. I remember the mothers who grieve their sons’ vibrant spirits every day, and I take a moment to send Snapchats to my beloved cuates.

Día de los Muertos is so ingrained in my being that I am startled to see people in costume; my mind wonders for a second, “What’s that all about?” This is amazing because I was so involved in Halloween while my children were growing up—making costumes, figuring out the healthiest candy to hand out, trading my children’s candy for money so they were not overloaded with sugar (and I could store their loot for the next Halloween).

In years past, I have hosted gatherings to decorate sugar skulls, loving this tradition of blending death with creativity. I treasured giving my children and their friends the chance to be playful and imaginative with something that so many people fear. As a writer, I live in that crevice of light and shadow, writing drafts only to end their existence for another version and then another and then yet another.

I love the transparency of life and death, the calaveras that dance and meditate and watch TV. Each skeleton could be anyone of us, and one day we will know what our antepasados experienced after their last out-breath. One day we will see there is no separation between any of us, alive and dead.

The first and only altar in my parents’ home was the one we created on a cake after my dad’s funeral, laying out the detallitos of his life that he allowed to be visible. The secrets were still within him, wisps of energy that over the years encircled us with cariño or strangled our voices or tripped us as we ran.

As I set up my altar year after year, I breathe in the musty smell of the newspapers I have carried from home to home. These crinkled papelitos wrap and unwrap memories and give space for those I loved and lost to whisper consejos in the stillness. I unbind my heart wounds and apply the salve gained from another year of living—that little bit more of perspective and wisdom nestled in my corazón that wraps around me like a soft, colorful rebozo.

____________________

Linda González is the author of the memoir The Cost of Our Lives. She has published essays in literary journals and books, is a storyteller, and received her MFA from Goddard College. This essay is an excerpt from Endangered Species, Enduring Values: An Anthology of San Francisco Area Writers and Artists of Color, edited by Shizue Seigel, Pease Press, 2018. www.peasepress.com. It was published in Yes! Magazine, 31 October 2018.

How I Celebrate Life on the Day of the Dead by Linda González is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Reading Comprehension Questions

1. What significant event does the author remember every year as November 1 approaches?

2. How does the author calculate the number of years since her father's passing?

3. What is the first step the author takes when setting up her altar?

4. What tradition does the author mention involving sugar skulls?

5. What does the author use to wrap and unwrap memories as she sets up her altar?

Inference Questions

1. Why might the author feel a strong connection to Día de los Muertos?

2. What can be inferred about the author's relationship with her father based on her reflections?

3. How does the author’s involvement in Halloween contrast with her feelings about Día de los Muertos?

4. What does the author mean by "the transparency of life and death"?

5. How does the author use the act of setting up the altar to cope with her grief?

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