Reading Strategies
Marking up a text with notes, questions, and highlights to spark memory later.
What is annotation?
This rhetorical mode involves the construction and relation of stories, often integrating description.
What is narration?
This refers to the boundaries of your story, determining which events, times, and locations are included.
What is scope?
Narrator uses “I” or “we” and shares internal thoughts and feelings, limited to their perspective.
What is the first-person point of view?
A character who remains the same throughout a story, providing a contrast to more dynamic characters.
What is a static character?
This five-step method—Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review—improves comprehension.
What is SQ3R?
This rhetorical mode emphasizes vivid, sensory portrayal to help audiences experience a subject more fully.
What is description?
Writers are encouraged to do this with reflective passages, rather than tacking them only onto the end.
What is weaving reflection?
The narrator observes the thoughts and feelings of multiple characters from an all-knowing perspective.
What is the third-person omniscient?
A character described in depth, with distinctive traits, behaviors, and motivations.
What is a round character?
Brian Gazaille’s annotation “kit” includes underlining the thesis, paraphrasing arguments, and spotting these three appeals.
What are ethos, pathos, and logos?
A story that starts “in the middle of things” uses this Latin phrase.
What is in medias res?
The part of a story where events begin to build tension, conflicts emerge, and the main character starts facing challenges that lead toward the climax.
What is rising action?
The emotional register conveyed by the narrator’s language, distinct from the reader’s experience.
What is tone?
A character who changes noticeably due to events or other characters in the story.
What is a dynamic character?
This two-column note system keeps readers close to the text on one side, while encouraging personal reactions on the other.
What are Double-Column Notes?
A story’s emotional register, which a reader experiences as they engage with the text.
What is mood?
The order and speed with which events are presented, affecting how readers experience the story.
What are sequence and pacing?
The emotional register experienced by the reader, influenced by narration, plot, and character.
What is mood?
Dialogue that shows character traits or relationships without explicitly stating them is called this.
What is indirect characterization through dialogue?
When pressed for time, this section of a scholarly article provides a concise overview of its discussion and findings.
What is the abstract?
The rhetorical term for the deliberate use of words, images, or other media to inform, entertain, or teach an audience.
What is storytelling?
The familiar triangular model of plot—exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution.
What is Freytag’s Pyramid?
A narrative style that imitates the unfiltered thought processes of a character, often digressive or inconsistent.
What is stream-of-consciousness?
A character who is only briefly sketched, often serving as background or a foil.
What is a flat character?