Lesson 5: Reading Authors

Discussion

Reading Authors

You have become an active reader through the first four lessons of this course, and you have learned about the elements of literature. Now you are going to apply (or use) all this information to study how authors work. By doing this, you will become an even better reader and writer. Analysis is a skill that you will be expected to use as you go on to higher grades in school. It is the basis for understanding and comparing literature.

Even if you are familiar with both of the authors in this lesson, you will learn new ways to look at literature by working through the next two lessons. I hope you will enjoy being able to choose which unit in the textbook you would like to complete. You might even decide to do them both!

There are millions of wonderful novels out there for you to read. Reader choice is something you do each time you pick out something to read. However, readers read for a variety of reasons. Sometimes you read for pleasure, and sometimes you read because you need to find out more about a subject or because you will be expected to do something with the material. Both kinds of reading are valuable, but you wouldn’t read a book you picked up for fun in quite the same way you would read a book you will be tested over. The reading skills you learn in this unit are meant for use in other academic (school) reading you will do in higher grades.

From your work in the Daybook, you should be familiar with the types of things you need to do when you are being an active reader. You are now an expert active reader—you can respond to literature, you know how to connect what you read to your own life, and you know the elements of literature and the techniques authors use when they write. You have practiced these techniques yourself through your writings and your journal.

Now it’s time to practice these techniques in the unit you choose. Although the directions will be a bit different for the two units, the practice you will do is very similar. For this lesson, your learning will be self-directed. In other words, you will be expected to read the directions, use the techniques you learned in the first four lessons, and complete activities as the textbook directs. You will apply what you have learned in previous lessons. In the next lesson, this practice will help you complete the activities in the novel that go with the unit you choose.