Novel writers are essentially story tellers. For some
writers the story, and the telling of it, is the most important
thing. They are primarily craftsmen producing a work of art...an
accurate representation of their own and other’s experience.
Other authors have something they want to say. They have some
insights into human existence...the way we think, the way we feel,
the way we relate, the way we grow, the way we are...or they
have some answers to our basic questions about the world and universe
in which we find ourselves...how do things work, who is
in charge, what does it all mean...that they want to
communicate. The story, for those authors is the vehicle, or the
tool, they use to say what they need to say.
Finally, there are a few authors who intentionally use their stories
to manipulate people, and people’s feelings. They are primarily
interested in the effect their words will have on the people who read
the story. They would like to change your mind. They would like to
scare you to death. They would like you to be profoundly upset, or
profoundly depressed by their story. They would like you to be
generally inspired or uplifted. They would like you to be motivated
to some particular course of action.
It is probably fair to say that most authors fall somewhere in
between those three extremes...they set out to tell a good story, but
the story interests them because of what it has to say about life,
living, and this place in which we live, and /or for its
possible effect on the reader’s ideas or feelings, on the
reader’s life.
Your reasons for reading books can be as different as different
author’s reasons for writing them.
I am going to ignore the fact that many of you only read what you
have to read, because someone else is making you read it. That
is not a reason to read...and I doubt that any real reading takes
place if that is your only reason. You have to get beyond that, to
reading for some reason that makes sense to you, that matters to you,
before you are likely to do the kind of thinking and feeling that is
real reading. You have to get beyond that or you are unlikely to read
at all, once someone stops making you.
The reasons you might read parallel the reasons authors have for
writing.
You might read a book simply because you enjoy good story telling.
You are entertained by the process of telling itself, the words and
images used, the twists of plot and character, by the craftsmanship
of the author.
You might read a book to find out what the author has to say about
life and living.
You might read a book because you want your thoughts and feelings
manipulated. You want to think new, different thoughts, to have your
horizons and your intellectual options expanded, to see things in a
new and different way. You might enjoy feeling something in the
relatively safe pages of a book that you would not dare to feel in
real life (as in “scared to death”). You might want (and
need) to be inspired or uplifted or motivated.
Again, though, most of us read for a combination of the three. We
enjoy a good story well told, we are interested in knowing how
another human being, the author, sees the world and the human
condition, and we do enjoy being made to think and feel differently,
more intensely, than we might in real life.
A good reader begins asking the question: “What is the author
trying to do here?” on the very first page of the book. There
are many ways of phrasing that question, each of which puts a
slightly different slant on it.
As the good reader reads, he or she is continuously trying to answer
one of those questions, consciously or unconsciously, and to predict
how the author is going to pull it off...to predict whether the
author will get the job done, and how he or she is going to do
it.
A good reader has a theory by the end of the first chapter. The good
reader is already beginning to form an answer to one of those
questions by the end of the second or third page of the book. The
process of reading becomes one of gathering evidence to support or
revise that theory.
What we are going to do here is to try to make this whole process
more conscious. Many of you already do this. All of you could do it
better with some effort. As we read the two books for this unit we
will be doing some daily writing to focus in on the skills and habits
of thought that are needed. We will be keeping a daily journal or
book log following the format on the following pages. You will also
use your log to keep track of characters as the are introduced, and
any unfamiliar vocabulary.
(You will need a section of your notebook to do this, and the
quality, completeness, and thoughtfulness of your journal will have a
large effect on your overall grade for the unit.)
After reading three pages, answer these questions:
Based on what you have read so far:
1. What do you think the author is trying to do here (what’s
your theory)? Options might be:
2. What evidence have you seen so far to support
your theory? Evidence might be:
3. How do you think the author is going to get the
job done (predict what will happen, or how the characters will
change, or what the message is and how it will take shape, or what
the mood is supposed to be how it will develop).
Make a list of the characters, with a brief description of each,
and note any unfamiliar vocabular (look the words up, if necessary,
and record definitions).
After reading the first chapter, answer these questions:
1. Theory: What do you think the author is trying to do
here?
2. New Evidence: What evidence have you seen so far to support
your theory and predictions? or: What evidence did you see to cause
you to revise your theory and predictions?
3. Prediction: How do you think the author is going to get the
job done (predict what will happen, or how the characters will
change, or what the message is and how it will take shape, or what
the mood is supposed to be how it will develop).
4. Critique: How good a job is the author doing? What evidence
can you give for your opinion?
Record any new characters, along with a brief description of each,
and any unfamiliar vocabulary with definitions.
Answer those same questions at the end of each reading session
(every time you close the book for the day). Enter the day’s
date, the page you are on, and your answers under these headings:
1. Theory &endash;&endash; 2. New evidence &endash;&endash; 3.
Prediction &endash;&endash; 4. Critique
and record any new characters, along with a brief
description of each, and any unfamiliar vocabulary with
definitions.
It is good to time your reading to end at chapter ends since they are
often turning points in the story and good places to reflect on what
the author is trying to do.
All along you should be asking yourself: How does this book
relate to what I already know, the things I have experienced, the
other things I have read, seen, and thought? An answer to that
question should work its way into your theory and predictions by the
end of the 2nd chapter.
As you go along, consider this: there are only so many kinds of story
you can tell. The driving force of a story may be:
Use those concepts to expand your theory of what
the author is trying to do. What problem do the characters have to
solve, what conflict do they have to resolve, what goal do they have
to reach, etc.
By the end of the book you should be able to answer these
questions, and support your answers with evidence drawn from the work
(put your answer in the form of a formal essay. Apply the Essentail
Question Response rubric.):
What did this book mean to me? (How did reading it change
me...my ideas and feelings? What did I learn?) and How well did
the author do his or her job?
MSLRs:
As we read the books for this next unit, we will be concentrating on
the Content Standards in bold, but all of them apply to the
reading we will do.
A. I have the skills I need to understand, evaluate, and appreciate
what I read.
Understand:
Evaluate and appreciate: