Reading Intensively for Comprehension

Responding to Specific Questions on a Text Read

Reading information from different sources involves two types of reading which are extensive and intensive reading.

Intensive Reading

1. Involves reading tasks, passages and information carefully with the aim of gaining knowledge from the information in the text.

2. Read the introduction:

   • Many introductions contain valuable insights into the author's life and his writing, both of which can enrich your understanding and appreciation of the work.
   • It will often provide background knowledge on the novel.

3. Read carefully:

   • This is no time for speed reading or skimming!
   • A careful reading may seem slower, but you will ultimately save more time than if you have to reread everything.
   • Begin reading the novel or short story as soon as it is assigned and read slowly and with attention to detail!

4. When you are reading a novel or short story, the main areas of focus should be:

   • Form: Refers to the writing style and techniques used and how the elements of design are implemented.
   • Content: Refers to what is the literary work talking about.

Parts of Forms

1. Plot: Reflection of motivation and causation.
2. No plot: The king died and then the queen died.
3. Character: Is a fictional person who drives a story or who the story is about.
4. Setting: A work's natural, manufactured, political, cultural and temporal environment, including everything that characters know and own (place, time, objects).
5. Title: Is the name of the book.
6. Writer/author: This is the person who has written a story.
7. Tone: Methods by which writers and speakers reveal attitudes or feelings.
8. Style: Ways in which writers assemble words to tell a story, to develop an argument, dramatise, or the way they use certain words in the service of content.

Parts of Content

1. Theme: Results of general and abstract thinking in literature, themes relate to meaning, interpretation, explanation and significance.
2. Literature: Embodies values along with themes are vital to an understanding and appreciation of literature.
3. Themes: Are not as obvious as character or setting.
4. It is important to consider the meaning of what you've read and then develop an explanatory and comprehensive assertion.
5. Message: Is what the reader learns from a literary work.