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Big Ideas Workshops Teach Critical Reading
Copyright (c) 2023 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Uncorrected proofs were used with this sample chapter.
Each unit begins with focused workshops in critical reading and literary analy-
sis, keyed to the Big Ideas and Enduring Understandings of the course and color
coded to align with the AP® English Literature Course and Exam Description for
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ease of navigation.
Engaging and Focused Instructional Content That
Highlights Essential Knowledge and Builds Enduring
Understanding

• Makes relevant connections to illustrate the literary skill
• Introduces key vocabulary and explains the function and significance

CHARACTER
Perspective and Bias

AP Enduring Understanding
®
Characters in literature allow readers to study and explore a range of values, beliefs,
assumptions, biases, and cultural norms represented by those characters.

You can tell a lot about people based on the content that they post on their
social media profile. For example, you can potentially figure out their sense
STRUCTURE
KEY POINT of humor, their taste in music, or their views of current events. You’d also get STRUCTURE

Shifts and Contrasts
a sense of how often they engage with social media and respond to online
A character or content. While you cannot learn everything about people solely based on their
speaker’s perspec-
tive and biases online activity, it’s one source of clues about the person running the account.

AP Enduring Understanding (STR-1)
®
are shaped by his
or her past. These The arrangement of the parts and sections of a text, the relationship of the parts to
each other, and the sequence in which the text reveals information are all structural
biases appear in the Values Influence Character’s Perspective
character’s choices, choices made by a writer that contribute to the reader’s interpretation of a text.
actions, dialogue, Characters must navigate their fictional worlds from their own perspectives ,
internal thoughts, which often seem as complex and nuanced as people’s perspectives in real life.
and interactions Readers learn about a character’s values through details about his or her thoughts,
Authors use literature as a way to explore or to relate ideas and issues that are part
with others. words, and actions.
of the human experience. As you’ve already learned, characters represent values,
As with people in real life, the perspectives of characters are influenced by
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: Word Choice, Imagery, and Symbols
perspectives, and expectations. For example, a character chooses to do (or not to
their backgrounds, their education, their families, and their past experiences. KEY POINT
Associations and Emphasis Shifts and contrasts
do) something; a character navigates a moment of crisis; a character learns some-
Even apparently minor details in the story can provide helpful information about
thing after overcoming an obstacle. In the process, the character reveals familiar
a character’s perspective. Characters reveal their perspectives and biases in their within a text often
human struggles.
assumptions about others, the stories they tell, their secrets, their decision-making
AP Enduring Understanding (FIG-1) illustrate a tension
®
process, and even their misperceptions.
of values that helps
Comparisons, representations, and associations shift meaning from the literal to the readers interpret a
A Text’s Structure May Reveal Meaning
figurative and invite readers to interpret a text. literary work.
Discovering a Character’s Perspective
To communicate their insights, authors set up the plot or the structure of a literary
work to help readers uncover meaning. Good readers often discover meaning and

Readers can learn about a character’s biases through a character’s choices and
People use associations to make meaning in everyday life. For example, when
make interpretations by looking for changes within the work, such as shifts in
actions. How characters act toward people who are different from them, how
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: Comparisons
commercials repeat messages about “great low prices” or a product’s high quality,
they apologize to someone close to them, and even how they adapt to new

• the dramatic situation, especially a conflict;
circumstances — all of these may reveal a character’s perspective or bias. Indeed,
KEY POINT companies hope that you associate their brands with these positive ideas. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Similes and Metaphors

• a character’s or a speaker’s perspective;
In addition, you may have experienced a conversation at some point in your
an astute reader not only infers a character’s values (ideas, attitudes, or beliefs
Authors use life when someone makes an association that is unclear to you. For example, a

• the attitude or tone of the work;

about the human condition) from all the elements of characterization but also
referents and person might say, “They’re all out to get me!” without clarifying who the term
• point of view;
repetition to create applies that information when interpreting other parts of the text.

AP Enduring Understanding (FIG-1)
®
Characters may even be unaware that they are revealing information about
associations within “they’re” refers to. In this instance, it may not be crucial to understand what the
• setting or time; and
Comparisons, representations, and associations shift meaning from the literal to the
their values and biases to the reader.

their works. These person means, but in other instances, ambiguity could change the entire meaning
• images.

figurative and invite readers to interpret a text.

associations may of the sentence. Consider the following example: “When guests come over, Samuel
emphasize an idea, often brings his dog to the living room because he loves to give sloppy, wet kisses.”
These changes are important because they indicate new understandings or a con-
create intentional Is Samuel just very affectionate with his guests or does he have a very friendly dog?
ambiguity, or trace a flict of values that help us get at meaning as we interpret a text. Good readers look
for shifts and contrasts in the structure of literary works to help them find these
concept throughout When telling stories or even in everyday conversations, people rely on compari-
118 sons to make a story juicier. For example, when your friend says, “That statistics
changes. In prose, for example, the shifts and contrasts may occur as part of the
x the text. Associations Connect Elements
plot; characters in conflict may even signal these shifts explicitly.
test was an absolute monster!,” he or she isn’t saying that the Scantron literally had
within a Text KEY POINT
razor-sharp teeth, venomous pinchers, and a lust for blood. Rather, you know that
As you read poetry, you should consider the text’s structure as well. Poems
your friend really means that taking the test felt like a standoff with something Authors compare
are made up of lines and stanzas . A stanza is a group of lines in a poem. The
Authors have several different ways of signaling to readers that details are concrete objects
scary, dangerous, and unknown. Your friend could have just said, “That statistics
arrangement of the lines and stanzas make up a poem’s structure, which also
important. There are two types of associations: writers may choose words, with ideas about the
depends on the poetic form the writer has chosen. For example, sonnets are
test was really hard,” but by comparing it to a monster, your friend communicated
images, and symbols that they believe will create emotional connections with human experience
traditionally structured to have contrasts in their final lines, with rhymes to
a more vivid and visceral sense of his or her experience.
their readers, or they may make syntactical choices such as antecedents, repeti- to emphasize, clar-
reinforce the shift.
01_williamlit1e_46174_fm_i_xxxvii.indd 10 tion, and ambiguity to create associations within a literary work. Because these ify, or explain these 23/09/22 10:41 AM
associations move beyond the literal, they are a type of figurative language . In ideas in a way that
Comparisons Create Associations

short, figurative language draws upon the literal and concrete to reveal the intan- connects to an audi-
gible and abstract ideas. ence’s emotions.
Effective comparisons draw on the experiences and associations that are already
familiar to readers. By using figurative language , writers invite the audience to 125
join in the act of meaning making; in the process, the readers access information
Antecedents and Referents
about something that they already know and transfer that knowledge to a new
An antecedent is a device in which a word or pronoun in a line or sentence refers
thing. For many readers, these fresh ways of seeing, connecting, and understand-
to an earlier one. Generally speaking, antecedents refer to the noun that a pronoun
ing are a source of aesthetic pleasure and interest. But striking comparisons also
01_williamlitte1e_47545_FM_TE-i_xxxvii_1pp.indd 38 replaces and refers to. 25/01/23 11:38 AM
provide a deeper, richer understanding of the two subjects being compared.
To make an association, authors connect two parts: a referent and an
As with any kind of interpretation, understanding the context in which a com-
antecedent. An antecedent is a word, phrase, or clause that comes before its
parison is made is key to understanding its significance. Comparisons made at the
referent. Referents can be the following:
beginning of a text might take on new meaning after the resolution of a story or
poem’s conflict. The circumstances in the text may affect the comparison.
• Pronouns
In any comparison, the thing being compared is referred to as the main sub-
• Nouns
ject ; the thing to which it is being compared is the comparison subject .
132 Writers use comparisons to connect with an audience too. In other words, the
author expects the reader to understand the comparison. But readers should also
ask, Why did the author make this comparison? Did the readers at the time a text
was written understand it differently than readers today? For example, a literary
comparison written in Shakespeare’s time may now have different meanings than
it did for its original audience. In fact, comparisons can lose their meaning when
readers change or a time passes. When reading stories, poems, and plays from dif-
ferent cultures and historical periods, close readers ask, Does this comparison still
hold meaning for this audience?
139