EmpoWord: A Student-Centered Anthology & Handbook for College Writers

Appendix B: Engaged Reading Strategies 463 kit asks you to deconstruct one of our readings, identifying its thesis, breaking down its argument, and calling attention to the ways it supports its ideas. Dissecting a text is no easy task, and this assignment is designed to help you understand the logic and rhetoric behind what you just read. Print out a clean copy of the text and annotate it as follows: 1. In one color, chart the story’s plot . Identify these elements in the margins of the text by writing the appropriate term next to the corresponding part[s] of the story. (Alternatively, draw a chart on a separate piece of paper.) Your plot chart must include the following terms: exposition, rising action, crisis, climax, falling action, dénouement . 2. At the top of the first page, identify the story’s point of view as fully as possible. (Who is telling the story? What kind of narration is given?) In the margins, identify any sections of text in which the narrator’s position/intrusion becomes significant. 3. Identify your story’s protagonist and highlight sections of text that supply character description or motivation , labeling them in the margins. In a different color, do the same for the antagonist(s) of the story. 4. Highlight (in a different color) sections of the text that describe the story’s setting . Remember, this can include place, time, weather, and atmosphere. Briefly discuss the significance of the setting, where appropriate. 5. With a different color, identify key uses of figurative language— metaphors , similes , and personifications —by [bracketing] that section of text and writing the appropriate term. 6. In the margins, identify two distinctive lexicons (“word themes” or kinds of vocabulary) at work in your story. Highlight (with new colors) instances of those lexicons. 7. Annotate the story with any comments or questions you have. What strikes you as interesting? Odd? Why? What makes you want to talk back? Does any part of the text remind you of something else you’ve read or seen? Why? SQ3R This is far and away the most underrated engaged reading strategy I know: the few students I’ve had who know about it swear by it. The SQ3R (or SQRRR) strategy has five steps: