The Complete Idiot's Guide to Critical ReadingThe essential guide to looking at literature with your own two eyes. What students know about Shakespeare, Orwell, Dickens, and Twain is primarily what their instructors tell them. Here’s a book that teaches the students how to move on to the next level—evaluate and read critically on their own, trust their own opinions, develop original ideas, analyze characters, and find a deeper appreciation for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and more. • Ideal companion for college students and accessible for the casual reader as well. • Covers fiction, poetry, narrative nonfiction, biographies and memoirs, essays and editorials, and newspapers, magazines, and journals. • Features examples from published writing. • Includes a reading list and a glossary of literary terms. |
Contents
Fiction | |
Nonfiction | |
Developing Your Critical Eye | |
Relating to the Material | |
All About Fiction | |
Novel Ways to Pull the Reader | |
Figurative Language | |
Reading Philosophy Books | |
Essays and Memoirs | |
Newspapers and Magazines | |
The Final Analysis | |
Exploration and Research | |
Connecting the Dots | |
Testing Your Knowledge of Fiction | |
Testing Your Knowledge of Nonfiction | |
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Common terms and phrases
action American autobiography biography Bookmarks CAUTION Take Note century Chapter character cinquain conclusions Da Vinci Code Dalloway dialogue Emily Dickinson emotional essay example fact feel genres haiku happens Hawthorne Hester historian human humor hyperbole ideas important interpretation J. K. Rowling journalism journalist kind King Arthur Least You Need Lines literary literature lives look lyric magazines Malory Mark Twain meaning memoir metaphor mind Moby-Dick Mommie Dearest narrative voice narrator Nathaniel Hawthorne Need to Know newspapers nonfiction novel objective perspective philosophical piece of writing play playwright plot poem poet poetic poetry point of view prose questions reader reading experience references rhyme Scarlet Letter scientific scientists short story society someone structure style syllables symbols T. S. Eliot tell the story theme theory things thought topic truth understand unreliable narrator verse words written