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Review strategies for analyzing expository text.
Exposition means “explanation,” and expository text is writing that sets forth or explains a thought or idea.
Interpreting expository text involves the two-step process of reading and writing, or stimulus and response. People write in response to some significant stimulus—that is, an important event or experience. Their writing, in turn, becomes a stimulus that produces some response in the reader.
We read expository text to understand how other people respond to situations we may never experience on our own. We write expository text to share our unique views of the world.
Vocabulary is the biggest stumbling block on the way to reading comprehension, especially for new readers or readers faced with complex text. The vocabulary check is a strategy that prepares students for successful reading at any level.
The process is simple enough:
An important aspect of the vocabulary check is the use of idioms and figures of speech. Idioms are phrases or expressions whose significance comes from the common usage within a particular culture rather than a dictionary definition. The idiomatic phrase “chewing the fat,” for instance, has nothing to do with a meal of underdone roast beef. Similarly, figures of speech are nonliteral expressions that express some sort of metaphorical or symbolic truth. Because idioms and figures of speech are almost always composed of simple, common words, they are easy to overlook. However, they are also heavily freighted with meaning. Here’s a quick vocabulary check practice exercise. Read the following passage:
| It is of man that I have to speak; and the question I am investigating shows me that it is to men that I must address myself: for questions of this sort are not asked by those who are afraid to honor truth. I shall then confidently uphold the cause of humanity before the wise men who invite me to do so, and shall not be dissatisfied if I acquit myself in a manner worthy of my subject and of my judges.(Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dissertation On the Origin and Foundation of The Inequality of Mankind; 1754.) |
Imagine that you, the teacher, are preparing your list of words with less common meanings. Which of the following verbs would likely be included on your list?
Once the reader understands the actual words the author has chosen to use, he or she is ready to take the first step in figuring out the ideas those words are meant to convey. As any journalist or budding private eye knows, all important lines of investigation begin with a few simple question words: who, what, when, where, and why.
The student should read the text with these question words in mind. Each question word can open several different lines of inquiry, which the teacher can use to begin a class discussion or as individual writing assignments.
By answering these questions and others like them, students understand more about the content of the text and begin to place the text in context.
|
Question Word
|
Lines of Inquiry
|
|---|---|
| WHO | Who is writing? |
| Who is the author writing about? | |
| Who is the author writing for? That is, who is the intended audience? |
|
| With whom does the author agree/disagree? | |
| WHAT | What does this word/phrase/idiom mean? |
| What is the main topic under discussion? | |
| What is the context? (Political? Philosophical? Historical?) | |
| WHERE | Where (geographically, culturally) is the author from? |
| Where is the piece intended to be read: Locally? Globally? | |
| Where was piece published? In a small, obscure magazine? In a widely circulated newspaper? |
|
| WHEN | When in history was this piece written? |
| To what historical period does it refer: Past? Present? Future? | |
| What important events were happening at the same time? | |
| WHY | What motivated the author to write this piece? |
| Why is it significant to me (the reader)? |
Keep in mind the above as you read the following excerpt from Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741):
| It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no visible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that he does not see which way he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident, and that there is no visible danger in any respect in his circumstances. The manifold and continual experience of the world in all ages, shows this is no evidence, that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that the next step will not be into another world. |
Why does Edwards phrase his statements in the negative, going so far as to include a double negative in his concluding sentence?
Step Three: Background Investigation
Now for a tougher question about the same passage: In what historical context is Jonathan Edwards writing?
This cannot be answered by the text itself, yet it is just as important in understanding the significance of this sermon. Some lines of investigative inquiry can be answered from within the text. Others reach beyond the text and require outside research before they can be answered. Because expository text is usually an author’s response to some particular event or experience, background knowledge can be essential in understanding the author’s perspective and main point.
Many of the basic lines of inquiry outlined in the previous section raise questions that can only be answered with a little research. Usually, the text provides enough clues for students to begin their investigations. In the case of the Edwards passage, we have the following clues to go on:
What keywords would likely return the most helpful information from an Internet search?
Expository text can contain a lot of extraneous information such as:
Not all of these elements are essential to understanding the main idea being conveyed. Students must therefore develop the ability to sift through the facts and figure out which are fundamental to the author’s theme. The “skimming and scanning” methods are handy ways of picking out factual information from surrounding text.
Henry David Thoreau’s “A Plea for Captain John Brown” (1859) includes plenty of biographical detail about Thoreau’s subject, the insurgent John Brown, who raided the town of Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, in an attempt to begin an insurrection of slaves throughout the South. Thoreau believed Brown’s actions were just and that the government should not seek to hang him.
| He was one of that class of whom we hear a great deal, but, for the most part, see nothing at all––the Puritans. It would be in vain to kill him. He died lately in the time of Cromwell, but he reappeared here. Why should he not? Some of the Puritan stock are said to have come over and settled in New England. They were a class that did something else than celebrate their forefathers’ day, and eat parched corn in remembrance of that time. They were neither Democrats nor Republicans, but men of simple habits, straightforward, prayerful; not thinking much of rulers who did not fear God, not making many compromises, nor seeking after available candidates. |
In the context of Thoreau’s argument, which of these pieces of information about Brown’s Puritanism is most important?
At this stage of the reading comprehension process, the student is ready to tackle the big question: what is the author’s main point?
This is a two-step strategy for students to use. To begin, the teacher selects a significant passage of text that communicates the author’s theme. Students then first paraphrase the text selection as succinctly as possible. Ideally, the paraphrase will be no more than two or three sentences long. Secondly, students summarize their versions of the text in a single sentence.
The goal of this strategy is for the student to create a better understanding of the text, without inserting any personal opinions or conclusions about the reading material. The point in reading comprehension is exactly the same: the reader is preparing to make a considered, reasonable response to the text.
Read the following passage from Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation:
| That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. |
Select the choice that best summarizes its main point.