1. How to Get the Most Out of Your Reading
Analyzing the Novel
How to Get the Most Out of Your Reading
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

2. © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.
So How Do I Begin?
First of all, give the novel a chance. That means:
Don’t multitask (i.e. talk on the phone, text, listen to music, watch TV., play games, do math problems, etc.).
Don’t read in bed. You’ll fall asleep.
Give yourself a minimum of 30 minutes per reading session, long enough to enter the world of the novel and get acquainted with its people, language, assumptions, rules, and problems.
Don’t let long periods elapse between reading sessions. You’ll forget who lives in your novel, and why.
Don’t expect your new novel to be like the one you just finished. One of the best things about novels is that each one is itself.
Make an effort. Pay attention.
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Do I Have To Take Notes?
It helps if you:
Look up some of the words you don’t know—certainly all of the ones that get in the way of your understanding. You may skip some of the ones you don’t know if stopping to look them up interferes with your engagement and you’re sure you get the gist of the passage.
Keep a character list if there are too many characters to keep straight or if three or more characters seem to have the same name or names you can’t distinguish from one another.
Note any uses of language that take your breath away.
Note if the scene changes dramatically—to a different time or place.
Note any idea that seems to recur. It might be a theme.
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

4. Should I Write in the Book?
If it’s your book, of course.
If it’s not your book, no.
Then what?
Try Post-its.
Or note cards.
Or a separate piece of loose-leaf paper you fold into the book
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What Should I Look For?
First of all, the facts of the matter:
Where is all this happening?
A farm? A museum? A sailing vessel? A hospital? Somebody’s kitchen? A pub? A mountain crag? A big city? Brooklyn? Berlin? Beijing?
What appears to be the social circumstance?
Is it wartime? A domestic quarrel? A famine? A journey? Prom night? A death? A wedding? The first day of school? A robbery?
When does the action appear to be happening? And what is the significance of this time period?
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Classroom Activity
In your notebook, start your study notes on your novel by answering these questions.
Who wrote the book you are studying?
What is its title?
When was it written or published?
When did the author live?
Where does the story take place?
When does the story take place?
What is the opening line?
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7. Who’s doing all the talking?
Is the story being told by a first-person narrator?
Sample Line: “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.” – Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Or a third-person narrator who knows it all?
Sample Line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of good fortune must be in want of a wife.” – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Or a third-person narrator who only knows one character at a time?
Sample Line: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.” – George Orwell, 1984
This speaker, whose position from which details are perceived and related, is called Point of View.
Identify the point of view of the novel you are reading in class. 

© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

8. Who are these people in the novel?
What are they wearing (or not wearing)? And why?
How do they speak? Is it the King’s English? Or not? How can you tell? What might that reveal about them?
Besides the question of grammar, do they talk a lot? A little? With expression? Passion? Caution? Terror? Bitterness? Formality? What do their silences tell you? What might all that mean?
How old do they appear to be? How does age affect interactions?
What do they own or lack? How concerned are they for “things”?
What is their work? Their pastimes and pleasures?
What actions are they doing when you see them? Do these actions appear to be normal for these characters or unusual for them? What might that indicate?
What do these people have on their minds?
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Classroom Activity
Fold a piece of notebook paper in half lengthwise. On the left side of the fold, write down the name of each significant character and any nicknames by which that character is called. Leave plenty of space between each character’s name so that you have room for the next activity.
On the right side of the fold opposite each character’s name, write the following:
One quotation spoken by the character OR one quotation said by another character about the character you are studying.
Three or four descriptors of the character.
One action you have seen the character engage in.
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

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Plot
Plot is the structure of the incidents of the novel.
The plot may be chronological, but it may also be psychological or thematic.
In other words, the incidents of the novel may evolve so as to communicate the emotional journey of the protagonist.
Flashbacks sometimes take the reader back in time to examine the origins of the character’s feelings, thus thickening our understanding of what the character might be experiencing.
The incidents of the novel may also build the author’s case for a commentary on society.
In a well-made novel, the incidents of the plot do more than move the narrative forward. They move the reader forward to a more full understanding of character and theme.
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

11. Classroom Activity: Links
After you have read 50 pages of the novel, make a list of the scenes in this first 50 pages. Identify each scene this way:
Where does the scene take place?
Who is there in the scene?
What is the conversation about?
What are the characters doing?
After you have your list of scenes and have answered all four questions about each scene, then answer this question:
What do the scenes so far in the novel have to do with each other?
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How Did It Come To This?
One of the characteristics of the novel, as opposed to many earlier literary forms, is the causal nature of occurrences.
Sequenced action: Mary walked down the street and then a cat appeared and then Mary bought some carrots and then she went home and it began to rain.
Causal action: Mary walked down the street, and, frightened when Dick Whittington's cat appeared, she ducked into a shop to avoid it. There, she bought some carrots and hurried home to make soup before it began to rain hard. She hoped the cat would not follow.
When you have reached a scene of climax in the novel you are studying, ask this question:
How did it all come to this?
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Voice
If you listen with your literary ear, you can hear the author talking. The tone of the author’s language is called voice in the novel. Some novels have a strong, distinctive voice. In other novels, the voice is more subtle and harder to grasp.
Learn to hear the novel’s voice by looking at these factors:
Level of formality of the sentences.
Long or short? Sentences with multiple clauses, or only a few?
Level of formality of the diction.
Words with Latinate endings and many syllables? Or blunt Anglo-Saxon words? Common words or highly specialized vocabulary?
Phrasing, syntax, and idioms.
Are they idiosyncratic? Conversational? Full of clichés? Ungrammatical? Proper and correct? Rambling? Wordy? Terse?
Figurative language and word play.
Lots of it? Or not?
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

14. Classroom Activity: Voice
In your notebook, quote at least three passages that reflect the novel’s voice. Then try to analyze the language to see how the author created that voice.
Read your selected passages out loud at least twice each. Listen to your own voice as you read. How does the author’s voice differ from your own?
How does the voice of the novel contribute to the novel’s meaning?
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Symbols
Symbols are efficient ways for the author to say a great deal in a short space. A symbol can be a character, a name, a place, an object, or even an experience.
In a literary work, the symbol works both on the literary level and also on an additional thematic level.
For instance, Hawthorne’s rose bush outside the prison is a real bush with real flowers one can pick. But the rosebush also stands for something sweet and desirable that the reader can derive from a story involving a sin.
Symbols usually suggest rather than say outright.
Learn to pick up on symbols by becoming alert to images or ideas that are repeated, discussed at length, or that mirror or parallel an action, character, or event in the story.
Sometimes you need to read the story more than once to see the symbols and what they suggest.
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.

16. Classroom Activity: Parts and Wholes
In a well-crafted piece of fiction, every scene, every character, every action, every reaction plays a part in developing the author’s idea and expressing the theme. Test the quality of your reading by asking yourself what each character, scene, or event in the novel contributes to the whole.
At random, put your finger on five different spots in the novel you are studying. Reread each scene you have found. In your notebook, briefly summarize the scene. Then answer these questions: How does this scene contribute to the novel as a whole? If the scene were not present, how would the novel suffer?
© 2012 Pearson Education, Inc.