Resources for Success

1. Glossary

Glossary

Metaphor:  a figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something important in common.  A simile is a metaphor, but not all metaphors are similes.  Metaphor is the broader term. In a literary sense metaphor is a rhetorical device that transfers the sense or aspects of one word to another. For example:  The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. — “The Highwayman,” Alfred Noyes

Simile:  a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared; using words like and is:  Example “she is like a rose

Personification:  the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure.   Example:   She did not realize that opportunity was knocking at her door.

Hyperbole:  obvious and intentional exaggeration; an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally.  Example:   “to wait an eternity.”

Oxymoron:  seemingly contradictory terms appear side by side;  Example:  alone together, criminal justice; "the same difference." This phrase qualifies as an oxymoron because the words "same" and "difference" have completely opposite meanings.

Irony:  its use in sarcasm, comedy and just everyday conversation.  Example “how nice” she replied when I told her I had to work over the weekend.

Euphemism:  substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for one considered harsh, blunt, or offensive.  Example:  using the word Eliminate instead of Kill.

Pun:  A play on words, sometimes on different senses of the same word and sometimes on the similar sense or sound of different words  as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another word similar in sound.  Example:  A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking;   Without geometry, life is pointless.

2. Overview and Guide to Oral Interpretation

GUIDE FOR ORAL INTERPRETATION                (Adapted from Basics of Speech by Glencoe/McGraw-Hill 2004)

Although the term oral interpretation may be new to you, the experience of interpreting literature is part of everyday life. Lawyers read evidence to a jury. Pastors read prayers. Parents and teachers read to their children.

You may remember how much you enjoyed being read to as a child. In this guide you will learn how to prepare for oral interpretion. You will learn the characterisics of oral interpretation , How to select appropriate, quality material for oral interpretation and how to analyze that material.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ORAL INTERPRETATION

Oral Interpretation involves the performing of literature aloud to communicate meaning to an audience. An interpreter analyzes the literature and uses his or her voice to communicate the results of the analysis. The interpreter is the connection between the literature and the audience.

There are major differences between oral interpretation and public speaking or acting:

1.      You are not the author. You are performing literature written by another person. You are not sharing your own personal thoughts and feelings as you would in public speaking.

2.      You perform the author’s words by direct reading. As an interpreter, you bring to life the exact words of another person.

3.      You interpret a piece of literature. You are not trying to create a message to persuade or inform your listeners. Instead you are trying to help the listeners “see” the images you are creating orally. Your goal is to share the meaning of the literature as you interpret it.

4.      You remain yourself during the performance. When you are acting, you take on the role of a character in a play. When you interpret, you use your voice and body to suggest the mood or the characters, but you do not bec0ome a character.

APPROPRIATE LITERATURE FOR ORAL INTERPRETATION

Here are some of the many kinds of literature you could use for oral interpretation:

Favorite Authors—you are already emotionally invested in the authors you like

Literature Collections—for example your English textbook

Biographies or Autobiographies

Plays or Screenplays

As you select your performance material, think about these standards: the quality of the literature, its audience appeal, the oral possibilities of the  literature and your feelings for the piece,

Quality of the Material

Good literature has certain characteristics. It has a theme that connects the reader or listener to common human experiences such as love, anger, joy and pain. It also has conflict, the struggle between two opposing forces. All people have experienced conflict within themselves, with other people or with nature. The literature should help the reader see ordinary ideas in a new way. The material should excite the reader’s imagination. (Teachers-read a poem that illustrates this. eg: Foul Shot by Edwin Hoey—trying to accomplish a goal under pressure)

Audience Appeal

Ask yourself how you listeners will respond to the material you selected. Is it appropriate for the age, concerns and feelings of your audience. Does the piece fit  the occasion.

Oral Possibilities

Can your listeners grasp the meaning of your piece in just one reading? You don’t ger a second chance. If the language is too difficult or sentence structure too comples, that literature is not appropriate for rading aloud. Look for words and ideas that can be clearly communicated,As poet Ted Hughes says in his book Poetry Is, look for words that “live.”

Words that live are those which we hear like “click” or “chuckle.” Or which we see, like “freckled” or “veined” or which we taste, like “vinegar” or “sugar”or touch like”prickle” or “oily” or smell like “tar” or “onion”. Or words that act and use their musc;es, like “flick” or “balance.”

Your Feelings

You must feel a connection to the material.You cannot expect an audience to get excited over a piece that has no meaning for you. If you don’t feel connected to the literature you will have a hard time communicating its meaning to your audience.

Checklist for selecting material for oral interpretation:

1.      ______Does is connect with common human experiences?

2.      ______Is it appropriate to the audience and to the occasion?

3.      ______Will listeners be able to grasp the meaning in one reading?

4.      ______Do you feel personally connected to the material?

ANALYZING  LITERATURE

Did you know that Katherine Paterson wrote Bridge to Terabithia as a way to help her son understand the death of his friend? Did you know Anne Frank actually was between twelve and fourteen years old when she wrote in her diary?

As you prepare for a performance you must become very familiar with the literature you have selected. The better you understand a piece, the easier it will be to communicate its meaning to your audience.

There are four keys ti analyzing literature. You need to look at the dramatic speaker, the elements of the literature, the language and the author.

The Dramatic Speaker

This is the voice that is heard as you perform your piece. This is the person telling the story or describing the scene. It is not the author’s voice but a voice created by the author. The voice may belong to a character in the piece or to a narrator who is not part of the action.

Who is the dramatic speaker in the following cuttings?

            Cutting A:

What a day, Dicey thought. What a summer for that matter, but especially what a day. She stood alone in the big old barn, in a patch of moonlight; stood looking at the sailboat resting on its sawhorse cradle, a darker patch among shadows. Behind her, the wond blew off the water, bringing the faint smell of salt and the rich, moist smell of the marshes……

                                                            Cynthis Voigt from Dicey’s Song

Cutting B:

Like I’ve been telling you, I am Leigh Botts. Leigh Marcus Botts. I am just a plain boy. This school doesn’t say I am Gifted and Talented, and I don’t like soccer very much the way everybody at this school is supposed to. I am not stupid either.

                                                            Beverly Cleary from Dear Mr. Henshaw

In cutting A it is clear that Dicey is not the dramatic speaker as she would not say, Dicey thought. It is someone who knows the character well. In cutting B, the speaker is a palin boy named Leigh Botts. It certainly is not the adult female author.

The search for the dramatic speaker(s) is your first step because you will want to behave and speak as if you were that speaker. For example, If you speaker is a child, you will not want to sound like an adult. If your speaker is a wise old woman, you will not want to sound like a bored teenager.

Elements of Literature

As you analyze your piece, you will need to look at elements such as setting, plot , mood, theme, conflict, characters and culture.

Setting  The time and place of the literature creates a setting for the performance. A setting in a roller rink in 1992 would be performed very differently that it it is set in an English church in 1820.

Plot The plot or story line must be made clear to your listeners. If you are doing a cutting from a story or book, you must be sure share any main points of the plot with the audience in the introduction .

Mood The interpreter creates the mood, or emotional feeling, of the l;iterature. This is done through non verbal message such as facial expressions, and pace. For example a humorous piece might be faster paced, with quick movements and have many smiles; where  a serious piece might need a slower pace and more serious facial expressions.

Theme Finding the theme or main idea of the piece lets you know what to emphasize in your performance. Some examples are:

Charlotte’s web by E.B. White—Friendship can be found in many places.

The Planet of Junior Brown by Virginia Hamilton - Pride in individuality is important.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson -  Death does not end the influence of someone in your life.

An Oral interpretation performance may contain a number of pieces of literature that have a similar rheme..

Conflict Conflict is at the heart of most literature. Without conflict, it would be hard for an audience to get involved in a story. Conflicts can exist internally,within characters or between characters. They can also exist between characters and the environment.

Characters. Interpreters need to understand their characters in order to get a sense of how to portray them in the performance.  in order to get a sense of how to portray them in the performance. Our study should include their appearance, words,  language, actions, attitudes and what other characters say about them.

Culture Many works of literature are written from a cultural perspective different than your own. You need to study the culture to get a better sense of what your character is about. You also need to be sure you are comfortable using the dialect of the culture and be sure you can pronounce foreign words correctly.

Language

As an interpreter you need to study the author’s word choice, style and rhythm and rhyme. If you don’t understand why something is expressed in a certain way, you can’t communicate its meaning to an audience.

Word Choice  You need to quote the author exactly as it is written. The words were chosen for a reason and should not be changed.

Style The way a piece was written helps create the mood or feeling for your listeners. Writers use imagery, descriptive and figurative language to appeal listeners eyes and ears.

Rythym and Rhyme All poems have rhythm. You need to determine what it is. Some poems are rhymed. You must decide how you will read it. For example if you read a rhymed poem in a sing song fashion you will create a differenr message than if you read the lines naturally and thoughtfully.

Author

You can understand a piece of literature better by studying its author. Try and find our at what time in the life of the author the piece was written? What was going on in his/her  life? Is ther a significance to the time or setting? On what themes does the author generally write?

PREPARING THE MATERIAL

Two important steps in peparing your piece for performance are cutting the literature and creating an introduction.

Cutting

Sometimes a piece of literature is loo long and it must be cut. Cutting the literature means shortening it by taking out parts without changing its meaning. In shortening a piece ou can cut (remove) the following;

Unnecessary descriptions—some descriptions may add interest to the written piece, but not be needed in presenting the main idea or feelings.

Descriptions of action or manner of speaking- Statements like “Madison shot him an angry glance” can be cut because you can create that feeling with voice and facial expression. Any phrases that you can show with facial, voice or gestures,  can be removed.

Statements of “he said” or “she said”—since you are creating the characters through your voice and non verbal actions, you can leave out words that tell who is speaking.

Offensive words – any words that might upset listeners can be substituted (exception to the rule of not changing words) or removed.

Unnecessary characters- sometimes minor characters are in a scene for a short time. You may cut that character’s lines as long as it does not change the meaning of the scene.

Creating an Introduction

Generally speaking the interpreter gives a short teaser (or beginning) of the piece and then closes the script to give a memorized  introduction.

Effective introductions do the following:

            Capture the audience’s attention

            Tell the Author and Title

            Give any necessary background information about the piece or author

            Set the scene

            If possible, tie the piece to the audience’s experience

For example:

Everyone has that cantankerous relative. You know-the one that can be sooo irritating, yet wise and endearing. In the following selection we meet 14 year old Will Tweedy and share with him his interactions with his Grandpa Rucker Blakeslee in a small Southern town at the turn of the 20^th Century. Through Will’s eyes we see his grandfather as both rough and stubborn yet caring; capable of tenderness and love.(pause) Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

USING YOUR VOICE AND BODY

To begin, this of yourself as the dramatic speaker. There is a fine line between acting and interpretation. If the Dramatic speaker is an uninvolved narrator or observer, your voice and body should reflect that.  If the dramatic speaker is a character in the middle of an argument, your voice and body should show the characrer’s anger.

Remember, however, you are interpreting the material, not acting it ou. You are sharing the story with your listeners with your voice and body. In the non verbal part of your performance you need to consider sense recall, use of voice and use of body.

Sense Recall

Sense recall is remembering physical experiences you have had, which will help to suggest  images or sense memories to your audience .Physical experiences you recall include sounds, tastes, smells touch and sights, For example, you could recall biting into a lemon and the sour taste, if you are describing the sour taste of an unripe green apple.

Other examples—

            Sound-imagine rhe sound of a car horn, or chalk scraping across a chalkboard

`           Taste- imagine eating a chocolate candy bar or bad tasting medicine

            Touch-imagine the softness of a baby,or jumping into a pool on a hot day

            Smell- imagine the smell of a skunk or your favorite flower

            Sight- imagine a severe thunderstorm or your favorite vacation spot

Body Recall

Body recall is when you remember your kinesthetic of or bodily responses when you had feelings such as fear, anger, anxiety, or great joy. For example if you are interpreting a piece where the character is afraid of an intruder in her home. You would want to recall a situation where you were very afraid and use that feeling for your character.

Use of Voice

Your voice will sound different depending on the tone of the piece, and who your characters are. Volume can have a great effect on your performance, For example, a shy character would speak more softly than a confident one. An angry character would speak more loudly than a sad one. As a narrator you would speak mpre softly to describe a peaceful scene than you would to describe a hurricane coming through, Your \pitch will vary as you read male or female, adult or child voices. An excited person has a pitch higher than a depressed one. Suggest the differences with your voice but don’t exaggerate it. Your rate of speech will be faster or slower depending on the text. An excited person may speak faster than an older character.

When you are shifting to a new character or changing the mood, you can use pauses to obtain the desired effect, Pauses can also create suspense. Vocal quality can also be used . for instance you might use a raspy tone for an old man or a nasal tone for an annoying character, You may also want to use an accent. But beware, if you can’t do it well, it will be distracting. In that case it would be better not to do it at all.

Use of Body

You bring characters to life by using posture, gestures and facial expression. As an interpreter you will remain with your feet planted in most cases, so you cannot use movements such as walking. falling or touching others. You may use gestures such as shrugging your shoulders, pointing your fingers, or scratching your head.  You may throw a punch at the audience to represent a fight, but you won’t actually get into a fistfight with another character. You can creat a mood with your posture, such as an embarrassed child by rounding your shoulders forward and hanging your head toward your chest.

Your facial expression should quickly communicate the mood of the piece to your audience. A joyous mood can be shown with a smile and a scary mood can be shown by tension in your face. Because you can’t use large movements, you may want to exaggerate your facial and ey expressions a little to communicate the meaning.

EYE FOCUS

You usually look at the audience when you are performing, scanning the audience slowly and pausing, holding your gaze, every once in a while before continuing to scan. However if you have more than one character, one way to show the difference between the characters is to have a different, but consistent eye focus for each character, For example, you may look at a spot on the back wall when speaking as the first character and then shift your eyes to a different spot as the second character. The audience should see your head and eyes move slightly as you switch characters. You don’t want to swing your head each time a different character speaks. See the sample diagram below.    Practice eye focus with a short play script.               

PREPARING A PERFORMANCE SCRIPT

To prepare a performance script you must

1.      Order the literature pieces in the order you will perform them

2.      Mark the pieces to reflect your thinking on how you will perform them

3.      Create the overall structure of the performance including transitions between pieces, and insertion of the introduction.

Ordering the pieces

When performing several short pieces such as a poetry program, you need to put them in order to create the right mood and keep the audience interested. This is known as weaving the pieces together to create the whole effect.

Marking the Script

Marking the script involves writing symbols that will help you to remember how to read the script. Any system of symbols will work as longas you know and will remember what they mean. However, here are a few suggestions.

Tips for marking a script

Pauses: use one diagonal line (/) to show a pause two diagonal lines (//) to show a longer pause.

Emphasis: use a solid underlining (______) to indicate words to be stressed; a wavy line to underline words that need a special tone or special emphasis.

Pronunciation: write the letter x over a syllable that needs stress

Movement: write cue (cue) to show a special movement

Rate: use highlighter colors to show changes in pace.

Creating the Structure

You need to decide where in the piece your introduction will go. Generally it will be after a 30 sec-1 minute performance teaser. All your transitions and  markings should be noted in the correct place and your script should glued onto card stock or construction paper pages and put in a three ring binder. Cut script pages so you are not turning the page in the middle of a paragraph or verse of poetry. The end of the page should be a natural pause in the script.

REHEARSING ORAL INTERPRETATION

Following are steps to practice the delivery of your oral interpretation.

1.      Read your piece silently two or three times. Go Straight through. Don’t stop and start over, and don’t go back over any section.

2.      Repeat step 1, this time aloud.

3.      Stand up! Give your piece while looking up at regular intervals. Practice gestures and movement. Work with your script. Follow your markings. Complete the entire piece. This is a rehearsal, so it doesn’t matter if you make mistakes. It is important to go through the entire piece without stopping.

4.      Continue step 3 until you can give the entire piece with all the planned vocal tones and body movements.

PRACTICING RELAXATION

You will probably be nervous before a performance. You may wish to try some relaxation techniques. Here are some strategies. Use what works for you.

1.      Clench your fists tightly for a count of ten. Release and let your whole body go limp.

2.      Take a deep breath and hold it for a count of ten. Let it out all at once, letting your body go completely loose and limp.

3.      Breath normally, let your muscles relax more and more as you let out each breath.

4.      Let your head hang down so your chin almost touches your chest. Slowly rotate your head in a circle, one way and then the other. Do this two or three times.

5.      Imagine yourself on a warm beach, in a hot bath or anywhere that seems relaxing to you. Breath slowly and deeply.

3. Top 25 Reading Strategies

Top 25 Reading Strategies

Practicing the strategies described below should expand your skills as a reader and the ways you think about reading. The primary goal of this handout is to help students become active, thinking readers who have a rich repertoire of strategies for dealing with and comprehending even the most demanding texts.

Most of all, you should enjoy what you’re reading (or your audience also will not).  Reading lets you hear and visualize what the author intended directly, rather than an actor or director’s points of view interfering with the original intent in a movie version of the text.  Don’t allow others to “tell you” what to get out of a reading-- be vigilant in interpreting for yourself, and be enthusiastic about sharing that discovery aloud with your audience.  Use these strategies to interpret your Prose and Poetry pieces, or even to breathe new life into a piece you’ve been performing for a while.       Best of luck!

1.  Mumbling. While you are reading, actually voice the words, speaking clearly enough that you can just hear the words you are reading to yourself. Give some inflection to your voice so you are not reading everything in a monotone, but keep your voice relatively quiet. It is probably best to try this strategy in some location where your mumbling will not bother others. [Keep in mind that silent reading of texts is a fairly recent development. Prior to the 15th century, very few people read silently. If you visited a medieval monastery, for example, you would have found all of the monks mumbling the words while reading. The assumption was that to read, you needed to hear the words--and so nearly all reading was done aloud.]

2.  Underlining Key Words/Rereading. This strategy depends upon you planning to read a piece two times. The first time through the text, try to maintain a smooth, even reading tempo. But keep a pencil handy, and underline or put a check in the margins for identifying what you suspect are key words in the piece or new words that you don't recognize. After you finish, go back through the text. Think about the significance of the key words or marked phrases. Look up unfamiliar words and write the appropriate definitions in the margins. Now reread the piece, focusing your attention on details and insights unnoticed during the first reading.

3.  The Conclusion. Read the conclusion of the text.  After you've read the conclusion, go to the beginning and read the piece all the way through again. While reading, keep in mind what you know about the conclusion and consider how the pieces of text you are reading might somehow prepare the reader for that ending.

4.   Kinesthetic Reading. Most of the time when we are reading, we are sitting down or lying on a bed or scrunched up on a sofa. For this reading strategy, you need to be up and about. While reading, read with your entire body. Feel the words in your body. Allow yourself to move around, to walk, to pace, even to dance. Think of the words as instructions for dancing. Use your body movements as a way to interpret the text or to give emphasis to key moments.

5.  Reading on a Walk. Take your book and go for a walk. During the walk, stop a few times and read from your text. Then continue walking. Or you can go for a walk, find a nice cozy bench or swing, and read the entire text in one sitting. But periodically refresh yourself. Stop looking at the words and enjoy the spring flowers or fall leaves, the squirrels planting acorns, the clouds above the trees. Relax and read some more.

6.  Stopping at Predetermined Reflection Points. Before starting the text, mark one or more points in the text where you will stop and reflect on what you have read so far. When you reach a reflection point, stop and think about what you have encountered. Do some quick review, skimming through the portions you have read to remind yourself of details or key points you may have forgotten. In the margins write some brief notes to summarize what you have so far. Then continue to the next reflection point.

7.  Visualizing Yourself as a Reader. We often allow negative thoughts and mental baggage to interfere with our comprehension of a text. It's difficult to enjoy playing basketball if you are constantly telling yourself how you hate basketball and how lousy you are as a player. Maybe by the standards of Michael Jordan you are not a great basketball player, but we don't have to be the best in order to gain value from what we are doing. When a task is at hand, just do the task. That doing can be helped if you visualize yourself succeeding at this task. Reading can be helped by an ability to see yourself as a reader. Before you begin reading a text, create a mental picture of yourself reading the piece. See yourself as a confident reader, someone who knows how to handle difficult challenges. No need to be cocky, just a sense that you can handle this text. And then start reading. And when your concentration drops or various kinds of interference interrupt your thoughts, stop reading, focus on the interference for a moment, tell it to go away, wipe it from the mind, and return to the text, again seeing yourself as the reader.

8.  Reading Inductively/Deductively. To read inductively is to move from specifics to generalizations, to use details and examples for creating conclusions, to discover the thesis of the text, the controlling ideas. To read deductively is to begin with generalizations, the thesis, the main point(s) and then to read for purposes of acquiring evidence to test the thesis, determining its accuracy or appropriateness. As a simple rule of thumb, we begin new texts by reading inductively, using the text to give us clues on grasping the text's messages. At some point we construct a hypothesis for telling ourselves what this essay or story or poem or book chapter is about. That hypothesis may come as soon as we read the title; it may come when we finish reading the first paragraph or the first page or when we finish the text--or perhaps such an insight never arrives. But usually at some moment in the text there will be a shift in our reading: we grasp the author's message and then our reading process shifts, taking in new data from the text and plugging that new information into the schema or plan that the mind has created for this text (a creation based on discoveries while reading). With this inductive/deductive model in mind, try reading a unfamiliar text. As you are reading, occasionally think about which kind of reading you are doing: inductive or deductive?

9.  The Special Reading Place. Find somewhere new to read, somewhere you have never previously spent any time, some place that is quiet and secluded, free of any likely interruptions. There are several rarely used areas in the library, many classrooms at night that have no one in them. Or perhaps you want to find a noisy place that is so filled with noise that you can block out the distractions. You might also consider a few places off campus; Wendy's could be a great place to go for a drink, a few fries or a caesar salad (for the health conscious types), and virtually no one to bother you. Once, you are settled, pull out the book and start reading. And then return to this same place on at least two more occasions; and be precise about where you sit--not just in the restaurant, but the same chair at the same table. Wherever you choose, do nothing here but read. No other studying allowed. No stereo music. No distractions. Nothing but reading. See if the place begins to invite reading, that once you enter this space, you assume the reader's frame of mind. Can we become better readers by changing our environment?

10.  Reading Aloud to Someone. This is another strategy that will depend on going through a text two times. You need a reading partner, someone willing to listen to you read and talk with you about the piece. Partners can be parents, siblings, friends, other students in the same class, and yes, even your Coach J.

11.  Someone Reading Aloud to You. Same process as above, except this time your partner reads the text aloud to you. All the other aspects of the strategy remain the same, including the conversation after the reading is done.

12.  Skimming/Reading. Take a few minutes to skim through the text. While skimming, look for repeated names of people, names of organizations, recurrent words or phrases that might be important. When you are done with your skimming, spend a few moments guessing what is covered in this piece. What have you learned so far and what are you expecting to find when you read the complete text? Once you have thought about the text, read it straight through, tracking how your reading corrects or modifies or completes your initial impression. Focus on the new information you are acquiring and how this fits with what you learned from skimming.

13.  Marginal Notes: Talking with the Text. While reading, jot down notes about the text in the white space around the text. The nature of the marginal notes are up to you. Notes can be summaries of important ideas, comments on ideas, brief quotes of interesting or puzzling passages, insights or responses or ideas you have while reading, voices/accents to use, vocal changes in tone, volume, pitch, etc.

14.  Annotating a Text. This is a technique for marking a text so the structure and main points or illustrations are highlighted. A reader can develop a personalized annotation system unique to the persona's individual reading habits. Here are a few annotation techniques that might prove beneficial:

o  Circle the thesis or key themes

o  Insert brackets around key supporting points

o  Underline key details and examples

o  Use marginal symbols to indicate personal feelings or insights about passage. For example:

§  N.B. for the Latin phrase nota bene, "mark well"; used to identify important, notable passages.

§  Question marks for passages that are confusing or vague.

§  Cf for "confer" points: noting instances when the marked passages connect with some other passage in this text or another text.

Whatever annotation system you devise, it's a good idea to keep it simple and flexible.

15.  A Reward. Before reading your selected piece, determine a reward you will give yourself for the successful completion of the assignment. You determine the appropriate reward, whether food or 15 minutes watching TV or playing video games. But be honest with yourself: don't give yourself the reward until you have read and understood the text you chose for yourself. No prize until you've earned the prize.

16.  Hearing the Text Inside Your Head. While reading the text, listen to the voice inside your head reading the text. Be sure you can actually hear that voice and that the voice has a natural inflection, a sense of phrasing and rhythm. If the voice has trouble with a passage, don't hesitate to stop and reread. Listen to how your internal speaker handles the language. Don't forget to think about the meaning of the words, but also remain aware of how meaning is delivered through the sound of a voice and the way sentences are phrased and given life by the voice.

17.  Visualizing the Text. While reading, visualize what is happening, see the landscape, the people, their actions. If the text is primarily abstractions and ideas, try to visualize the ideas in some way--or perhaps visualize the person delivering these ideas to you. You might imagine that you are creating a movie of the piece in your head, treating the text as a script. As reading or after you finish the text, make some simple drawings of events or people or places in the margins, some visual cues to help you remember what you've been reading.

18.  Talking Through a Text. This strategy may be useful when encountering a complex or ambiguous text. Find a partner and the two of you work through a text together, perhaps line by line or sentence by sentence. As you proceed through the poem or essay or chapter, talk about any word or phrase or image that is puzzling or intriguing. Work together in constructing the text's meaning. Feel free to jot down notes if that helps.

19.  Reading and Rereading. Read an essay, story, article, or poem using any strategies that feel most appropriate. Let the text sit unread for a few days and then reread the piece again. What did you remember? How was the second reading different from the first? Were you surprised by any discoveries in the second reading, seeing things that you don't believe you saw the first time?

20.  Rumination. Reading involves not only the time when you are looking at a text but also the process of thinking and reworking the text and its ideas long after you have closed the book. (what the writer Sven Birkerts calls "shadow reading"--thinking about the text after it has been translated from words on the page to images and ideas in the mind). For this experiment, set aside time to do both kinds of reading. Begin by reading the words on the page, using whatever strategy seems most helpful. When you are finished, close the book and do something else. But on 2-3 occasions later in the day or the next day, set aside a few minutes to think about what you have read. See how much of the text you can reconstruct without looking at it. And spend some time really thinking about the meaning of the text, its implications and applications, the possible connections between this text and other things you've read or thought about. After being away from the text for a couple days, reread it, this time comparing what you now see with what you were thinking about in the "shadow reading" phase.

21.  Spotting Key Words. In an initial encounter with a text, skim through a text, underlining suspected key words. Be on the lookout for new or unfamiliar words, phrases, or terms and underline them. Do this for several pages of the composition, and then go back and look up any unfamiliar words or phrases. Write marginal notes explaining/defining what you learn from your dictionary or another source. Now read through the piece. Does the initial preparation help you read those pages and the remaining text more effectively? Did you notice a significant difference in comprehension or interest when you moved into the previously unexplored text?

22.  Twenty Details. If you are reading a text you find remarkably dry and boring, play a game of twenty details. While reading, place a check mark next to any passage that expresses an idea or insight that you suspect the author thought was important. A simple rule of thumb: minimum of one check mark per page. When you have twenty check marks, quickly review what you discovered. Try to construct some connections among these twenty passages you have marked. You might write a simple commentary or summary of what you discovered. Then repeat twenty details game or try reading the text with normal rhythms.

23.  End of Text Summary. When you are finished reading the story, poem, or essay, write a paragraph in the margin or at the end of the composition, summarizing what strikes you as most interesting or appealing or puzzling about this composition.

24.  Mapping a Text. During and after reading your text, draw a reading map, a visual representation, of the structure or main ideas in a text. A map can be as simple as a list of key ideas or it can be a complex, symbolic representation of a text's internal relationships and patterns. A useful technique for many readers is to draw a web. Place a key term from the text in a circle in the middle of a page. Then start drawing interconnected circles and boxes of ideas and details drawn from the text. This can also be an excellent technique to use when you are preparing to write a paper about a text.

25.  Commonplace Book. Keep a notebook handy for writing down new words, their definitions, and reflections on the words' meanings and how you might use them. It is also a good idea to copy the passage where you encountered the word. You can also use the Commonplace Book for recording interesting quotes, ideas, and insights you want to remember from your reading. By keeping these quotes and ideas in a "common place," you increase the likelihood of remembering and being able to retrieve what you have read.

4. Structural and Aesthetic Components

Structural Components

Denotative:  explicit or literal definition as listed in a dictionary.

Connotative:  the emotions and associations connected to a word

Persona:  Who narrates.  Refers to the speaker, the one who relates the experience: 

Lous: What vantage point the ‘speaker’ speaks; physical and psychological position.  Also encompasses time and space (what affects the speaker)

Climax: Logical and Emotional 

Logical- Conflict is so intense a resolution must occur, only one outcome possible.

Emotional-Highest emotional impact and involvement for reader, writer will give clues

Aesthetic Components:

Unity- combining of all parts to make the whole. Content and form that hold piece together. Achieved:  persona and locus is strong unifying factor. Consistency.

Harmony – The idea and the way it’s expressed.  Choice of words, sentence structure; the style

Variety – two ‘like’ things differ; ie. Characters have unifying qualities by express differently

Contrast – Opposition or difference between ‘like’ things

Balance and Proportion (Proportion Provides Balance)

Balance- equal portion of intensity or content on either side of the central point

Rhythm:  Relationship between stressed and unstressed syllables.  Also important aspect of content, ie. Recurrent shift of attention from one character to another or from one place or time to another.

5. Writing an Introduction examples

INTRODUCTIONS

Sample Intro:

Trapped, secluded, alone. . . No one can ever imagine what it might be like to be locked in a deep, dark place, with no one to talk to, no one to help you. With only a typewriter to help her cry for help, meet The Girl In The Box by Ouida Sebastian.

Sample Intro:

Prejudice. Bias. Corruption. Voice. Freedom. Individuality. Ours is a nation of personal decisions; often, we must choose the lesser of two evils. This collection of poems by Ani DiFranco takes a blunt and revealing look at those aspects of America that do not straighten our back with pride. “Every State Line,” “’Tis of Thee,” and “Crime For Crime,” by Ani DiFranco.

Sample Intro:

Man: In every life, people come and go. Woman: But there is always that one person who comes along changing your life and ultimately changing you. Man: Tennessee Williams was known as one of the most influential and distinguished playwrights of our time. Yet little is known of his personal life. Woman: Audry Wood was Mr. William’s agent from the 1930’s until her death in the 1970’s. Her strength was infallable. . . Man: . . . and his passion uncurable. Woman: From the memoirs of a dying woman. Man: Mr. WilliamsWoman: And Miss Wood, as recorded by Max Wilk.

Sample Intro:

We all remember when we lost our first tooth. And we all had different reactions to it, be it joy, fear or shock. Well, my friend Ora Mae has just lost her first tooth. There’s just one little problem. . . someone has stolen it! So come along with me down to Crabapple Orchard, and we’ll see if Ora Mae can find the crook and send him. . . Airmail To The Moon by Tom Birdseye.

Sample Intro:

According to theatre backers, his play took $60,000 to produce, but only $58,000 is accounted for. The other $2000??? Well, there was that Turkish Bath. . . Meet Max Bialystock, a producer-turned swindler who must cover the missing $2000 with the assistance of Leo Bloon, ex-accountant, creative financier. Under the right circumstances, a producer could make more money with a flop than a hit. The search for the world’s worst play begins in The Producers by Mel Brooks.

What to Avoid

Beginning with “have you ever. . .”**

Example: Have you ever had a friend you loved so much you never thought you would be able to live without him? Well, that is how David and Stevie felt about each other, but they are about to learn the hardest lesson life has to teach in It Rained For Stevie by Jodi Zislis.

Giving away the whole story in the introduction.

Interpreting your introduction. It should be stated in your own voice.

What to do:  Be creative with your language choices. Use a thesaurus or work with others to help you word the introduction carefully.

Provide background or necessary details omitted from the literature in your cutting.

Memorize your introduction. A well-written intro is ineffective if you don’t have it memorized.

Rehearse your introduction as you rehearse your piece. You can rewrite it, but avoid writing it last-minute. Remember: the introduction is a whole category on your judging ballot.

Try writing intros on your own. Ask for assistance once you have something written down.** **Retime your whole cutting including the introduction to make sure you’re not over time.**

6. Structure of Writing an Introduction

Structure of Writing an Introduciton

Capture the Audience’s Attention with a Universal Statement

Develop a general statement that everyone can relate to or identify with – this statement should support the main idea of the piece.  Suggestions that can help develop this statement: A rhetorical question, facts, quotation, examination/observation.

Use a Topical Statement

Create a statement that identifies or describes a specific approach to the main idea or objective that the character experiences.  The topical statement may also identify behaviors, attitudes and beliefs in which the audience or the character in the piece possess which is contrary to the core concept.

Develop a Individual Statement

What does the character “learn”?

What should the audience learn from the character?