Close Reading

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Close Reading

• The SOAPStone Method

Jennifer Bennett Sanderson High School
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Why do I need to read closely?

• To gain the bigger picture
• To recognize and appreciate the craft and
  specific techniques/tools of the craft
• To understand that which sets art apart from
  books
• What is highly acclaimed?
• Why distinctions between fiction and
  literature? (See any major bookstores aisle
  categories.)

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How? SOAPStone

• Speaker
• Tone
• Organization
• Narrative style
• Evidence

• Subject
• Occasion
• Audience
• Purpose

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Subject

• What is the literal topic of this piece of
  literature?
• Whats it all about?
• The general topic, content, and ideas contained
  in the text
• Summarize
• What is the story?
• Whether an essay, poem, play, novel, etc., it has
  a story.

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Occasion

• Where and when does it take place?
• What is the rhetorical occasion of the text? Is
  it a/an
• Memory?
• Description?
• Observation?
• Diatribe?
• Elegy?
• Critique?

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Occasion, pt. 2

• Note the immediate occasion
• The issue that
• catches the writers attention and
• triggers a response
• Note the larger occasion
• The broad issue
• The center of ideas and emotions in the work
• Example Left at the Light
• Program for helping the homeless
• Occasion
• Immediateleaving (driving past) someone who was
  begging for money in the medium of a left-hand
  turn lane without helping
• Largerhow to help the homeless without enabling
  any destructive behaviors/addictions a homeless
  person may have

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Audience

• Level of general knowledge
• What do they already know?
• Ex. Literary analyses Process analyses
• Level of diction
• Slang
• Informal
• Formal
• Ceremonial
• What assumptions can I make about the intended
  audience? Does the author identify them?

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Purpose

• What does the writer accomplish with his or her
  literary work?
• What appears to be the writers intent?
• In what ways does the writer convey the message
  of the purpose?
• How does the writer try to spark a reaction from
  the audience?

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Speaker

• The voice telling the story
• Not necessarily the writer!
• What assumptions can you make about the speaker?
• Age?
• Gender?
• Social class?
• Emotional state? (etc.)

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Speaker, pt. 2

• Assess the speakers character
• Supply evidence for your conclusions from the
  text.
• Let the facts lead you to the speaker.
• What does the speaker believe?
• What biases may the speaker have?
• What approach/appeal does the speaker make for
  his or her argument?
• How do you know? Produce the EVIDENCE!

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Tone

• What is the authors attitude toward the subject?
• What emotional sense does the writer present?
• How do the following tools/vehicles for meaning
  present tone?
• Dictionword choice
• Syntaxsentence construction order
• Imageryconcrete representations to connect the
  reader with the writers subject/pov/tone
• From what source/s do the images come, primarily?

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Organization

• How does the writer organize/structure the text?
• How does the writer arrange his or her content?
• So? What effect does the organization have on
  the overall meaning of the work?

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Narrative Style

• How does the writer tell the story/unravel the
  subject?
• What does the writer reveal? conceal? invert?
  subvert?
• Is the writing dramatic (play) in nature, poetic,
  episodic, objective?
• What point of view does the writer use?
• SO WHAT?? What effects does the writers
  narrative style have on the work as a whole?

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Evidence

• The burden of proof is on you!
• Pull specific examples from the text, using
• direct quotations,
• paraphrases, and
• summaries
• to support your analyses/arguments.
• Use specific
• Literary devices
• Grammatical devices
• Rhetorical devices