9 Explore the Ways the Text Affects You

When you work with a text, you enter into a conversation with it, responding with your thoughts, ideas, and feelings. The way each of us responds to any text has a lot to do with who we are: our age, education, cultural background, religion, ethnicity, and so forth.

As you explore a text, be aware of how you’re responding to it.

• Are you reading or exploring easily and fluidly, or are you finding it difficult to navigate the text? Why do you believe this is so?
• Do you find yourself responding with some sort of strong emotion? If so, why do you think that may be happening?
• Do formatting or structural issues (examples: unusual use of punctuation, use of dialect or jargon) affect your navigation of the text?
• Can you identify with the text’s central idea or the information it’s sharing?
• Have you had any experiences like those being described? Can you identify with the story?
• Are you able to identify the surface meaning?
• Have you explored the text’s deeper, hidden messages?
• Do you need to look up any words to do any quick research? If so, does this help you better understand the text?
• What questions do you have about the work?