Read as if you were a detective! Read slowly! Linger over provocative details, the details that stir a reaction of any sort, then ask yourself why were you so stirred. That is how I read, when I read academically. I would not read a newspaper article in such a manner. There are as many ways to read (and interpret) as there genres for writing. When reading a literary classic, especially if it is an assignment for school, read academically - that is, as a detective! Observe and collect. Seek patterns and repetitions. Question these images and ideas. I do. I write in the margins of every literary work I undertake to understand it best. I wrote "not nice" several times throughout the LOTF whenever Piggy was somehow treated unfairly. I circled almost every appearance of the word "fruit" in the beginning of the novel. I underlined most recurrences of the words "mirror" and "reflection." You should do the same.
Can you make external links to other books or historical events? No such thing as a poor initial attempt to grasp the central meaning of a book when using this approach. Ah, is there a repetition of this connection? As I say continually throughout the school year in my class room: "A good author emphasizes something by repeating it." Repetition can occur as a single word within a sentence or sentences ("Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" This anaphora, spoken by Governor George Wallace during the civil rights movement of the 1960's, emphasizes his committment to Jim Crow Laws); it can occur as an idea or image re-represented with different words (synonyms) throughout a literary text (think of how equality is expressed within Animal Farm); and it can also occur as a theme, such as the motif of eyes in Elie Wiesel's Night. So grab your magnifying glass, put on your hat and trenchcoat, and enlist your friend Watson because we are going to investigate Sir William Golding's "The Lord of the Flies!"
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