1- IDENTIFY and SUMMARIZE briefly:

1.1- IDENTIFY the TEXT:

A- Nature: What Type of text is this? (Form of discourse)

a- Narrative:

1- Novel: historical, sociological, psychological, philosophical, dramatic, adventure, detective, romance, (auto) biographical, realistic, fictional (science fiction) # factual, sentimental ......

2- Short story: one subject, few characters, everything goes quickly.

3- Tale: fairy tale, fable (animals/moral message)

b- Descriptive (an account of an event/situation/experience that provides a lot of details so that people can imagine what it is like) 

c- Explicative/Expository (explain and analyze logically, in detail/ give information)

d- Argumentative/Persuasive (give arguments to persuade)

What kind of appeal is used? 

·Appeal to Emotions (pathos)--move the passions, make the end seem desirable.

·Appeal to Ethics (Ethos)--impress with one's sound sense/ knowledge of psychology, high moral character, benevolence.

·Appeal to Reason/Logic (logos)--deductive/inductive reasoning.

e- Poetic

f- Injunctive
 

B- Origin: Where is it taken from?

a- which book? (excerpt, passage, extract from a book)

b- which newspaper? (article)

c- which magazine?

d- which theatre play? speech? dissertation? treatise (one subject)? .............

 

1.2- SUMMARIZE the TEXT briefly:

Who? (characters: age, physical appearance, clothes..../ occupation...)

When? (time, day, month, year, century, .............)

Where? (country, city, village, place, house......)

What? (the plot: exposition, complication, climax, resolution)

(Why? How? )

 

2- ANALYZE the TEXT: Style + Content

2.1- STYLE:

a- Diction / Tone: Clear/crisp, heavy/flowing, general/specific, abstract/concrete, formal/informal, emotive (connotative)/ referential (denotative), affected, stretched, specialized, strained, sustained/unstrained, easy, not difficult, simple, familiar, colloquial, popular, vulgar, slang, Humorous, comic, ironical, touching, moving, pathetic, tragic, lyric, epic...….. Does it suit subject matter, purpose, occasion, audience?

b- Coherence devices: 

·Pronouns, demonstrative adj., conjunctions, … Are they used appropriately? Any repetition of key words? 

·Repeated words and phrases: What kind? what for? what do they imply, indicate, express?

·Links/Joining words: used adequately? varied? rich? Do they aid coherence?

c- Grammar: Tenses:Are they respected? 

Which tense is mainly used? pres./past/fut./cont./perfect...?) What does it indicate?

d- Sentences: 

·Simple/Compound/Complex/ Compound-Complex

·Statement (declarative), question (interrogative), command (imperative), and exclamation.

e- Figures of Speech: Schemes (word order) & Tropes (meaning)

·Schemes: parallelism, antithesis, asyndeton, alliteration, anaphora, climax, chiasmus...

·Tropes: simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, litotes, rhetorical question, irony, onomatopoeia, oxymoron…

What are they used for?

f- Paragraphs: 

·Short, long

·Logical pattern, ideas well tied together, proportioned parts

·Thesis statement: clear? Concise? Precise? Includes main ideas?

·Topic sentences, supporting sentences…. Well used? One idea in each paragraph? Does each paragraph develop a separate thought? Do the paragraph become integral parts of the whole?

 

2.2- CONTENT: (Analysis! Not just a Summary!)

A- Who is the narrator? Different from the author?

B- What does he/she relate/describe/talk about/explain?

C- Is he/she involved in the story? Objective/subjective? Omniscient? Limited omniscient?

D- What is his/her relation to the world and characters he/she describes?

E- What do the characters represent ? What is their importance in the story?

-What are their relationships to one another?

-What is the world or social group they belong to?

-Major character? Protagonist? Character foil? Minor characters? Antagonists?

-Internal conflicts?

F- Any symbols used? What are they?

G- Theme: (it shows the preoccupations of the narrator)

1- The 4 Elements: Air, Water, Fire, Earth

2- The 5 Senses: Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, Touch

3- Activity: Motion/Immobility, passivity, inertia

4- Appreciation: Positive/Negative (happy, sad, nostalgic, homesick....)

H- What is the aim of the narrator? How did he/she proceed to reach it? Who is the text aimed at? Any moral lesson?What is the message? How is it conveyed to the reader? (explicit/implicit?)

 

3- ASSESS: Give your Opinion

3.1- Are the ideas well expressed?

3.2- Did you learn anything from this text?

3.3- Are you For/Against? Why? 

3.4- Find another title for the text.

3.5- Do you have anything to add? Advice? Question? General comment? 

Nada AbiSamra

---

COMMENTARY ON A TEXT

Useful Sentences/phrases

·Account of an important/interesting episode

·Historical document/ political discourse/ plea in defense of…

·Dramatic = series of exciting events

·Tale = imaginary story involving magic/adventure

·It deals with the question of

·It aims at showing/denouncing…

·Writer of great narrative power

·The writer, through the narrators words, wants to show…. reveals/discloses…

·He focuses on/ emphasizes/highlights… the elements, events, incident…

·He plays with the paradoxes between… opposes the elements of… brings out the problem/ the debatable question of/ the burning issue of…

·He raises the eternal/ new question of…. Through the problems the characters are living/facing/going through…

·He implies through these words/ this quotation… that…

·The facts prove/disprove the writer's ideas

·As far as I'm concerned…

·I do strongly support… I totally disagree…

·It/he arouses in me the feelings of…

·I cannot but (dis)approve of/(dis)agree with/ feel moved by/ remain indifferent to…