1.  Why? You will read a wide range of texts in many academic disciplines as preparation for college and the workplace.

2.  What? A complex text is a work that contains  challenging vocabulary,  long, complex sentences,  figurative language,  multiple levels of meaning, or  unfamiliar settings and situations

3.  There are 3 strategies for comprehending a complex text:  Strategy 1: Multidraft Reading  Strategy 2: Close Read the Text  Strategy 3: Ask Questions

4. Strategy 1: Mulitdraft Reading  1 st Reading:  Basic Meaning  Who, What, When, Where (Plot elements)  Why (conflicts  are they resolved?)  Nonfiction text: read for main ideas  Poetry: identify speaker, setting, and subject

5. Strategy 1: Mulitdraft Reading  2 nd Reading:  Artistry and effectiveness of writing  Text structures (organizational patterns)  Author’s use of figurative language  Effect of author’s writing style

6. Strategy 1: Mulitdraft Reading  3 rd Reading:  Compare/Contrast text with others  Evaluate the text’s overall effectiveness  Evaluate its central idea or theme

7.  Strategy 2: Close Read the Text  To comprehend a complex text, perform a close reading – a careful analysis of the words, phrases, and sentences within the text. As you close read, use the following tips to increase your understanding.

8.  Tip 1 – Break down long sentences into parts.  Look for the subject of the sentence and its ver. Then, identify which parts of the sentence modify, or give more information about, its subject.

9.  Tip 2 – Reread passages.  When reading complex texts, re-read difficult passages to make sure that you understand their meaning.

10.  Tip 3 – Look for context clues. Such as:  Restatement of an idea.  Definition of sophisticated words.  Examples of concepts and topics.  Contrasts of ideas and topics.

11.  Tip 4 – Identify pronoun antecedents.  If long sentences or passages contain pronouns, reread the text to make sure you know to what or whom the pronouns refer.

12.  Tip 5 – Look for conjunctions.  Such as and, or, and yet, to understand relationships between ideas.

13.  Tip 6 – Paraphrase.  Restate in your own words, challenging passages in order to check your understanding. Remember that a paraphrase is a word-for-word rephrasing of an original text; it is not a summary.