Intriguing Literature Forces the Reader to Ask Questions Discuss Why would an author choose to leave information out of his story 2 How do we as readers reliably fill in this information To Make an Inference ID: 326987
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Slide1
Making Inferences
Intriguing Literature Forces the Reader to Ask QuestionsSlide2
Discuss
Why would an author choose to leave information out of his story?
2. How do we, as readers, reliably fill in this information? Slide3
To Make an Inference
What the author tells the reader (
textual evidence)
The reader’s knowledge
An Inference Slide4
For Example
The author/narrator tells says:
“I must be careful when I go outside because there is an angry dog the size of a car waiting to eat my kneecaps.”
We, as readers, know:
There are no dogs that size, and they wouldn’t be interested in kneecaps.
We can infer that:The author is crazy. Or he lives on a different planet with very large dogs. Slide5
Make a List
How does the author give the reader information?
Book cover
Description of setting
Character actions
Dialogue Word choice Sentence structure Slide6
The Reader’s Role
How does our prior knowledge help us make inferences?
Understanding the structure of literature
Understanding character motives
Understanding human emotion/experience
Applying previous experience and knowledge Slide7
Practice
Watch the movie trailer clip below and make as many inferences as possible.
Cloverfield
Movie Clip Slide8
Distinctions
An inference without textual evidence is called a guess.
There is no place for guessing in a Socratic Seminar or class discussion
An inference about what will take place later in the novel is a prediction.