FPR 10 (Notes)

• Who is speaking? To whom? How do you know? Is the voice being filtered through anyone else's narration?
  

• What's going on while the person is speaking? Is the action (or lack thereof) significant in any way?
  

• Summarize the passage. What does the original have that's lacking in your summary?
  

• Does the speaker seem to be communicating something other than what he or she is saying directly? What? How do you know? Do you trust what the speaker says? Why?
  

• What are the five most important words in the passage? Why? How do they relate to each other? To the rest of the book (as far as you've read, anyway)?
  

• Do any of your keywords have more than one possible meaning? If so, are any of these alternatives active in the passage under consideration? Are they active in the book as a whole?
  

• Are there any figures of speech (e.g., metaphors, similes, alliteration, etc.)? What makes these particular figures especially effective? Can you think of alternatives? Do any figures draw obvious links to other passages in the book?
  

• Are there classical, historical or biblical allusions? What do they contribute?
  

• What kind of diction is used? What does it tell you about the speaker?
  

• Is there anything else important or unusual about the passage?

FPR 10 (Winter 2003) web pages Created: 09 Jan 2002 Last modified: 21 Jan 2003 07:30:39 Comments to: dpvc@union.edu

Paper-Writing Guide Selected Course Notes