Lesson video

Hi there.

Thanks for joining me today.

Welcome to your lesson on Fiction Reading Skills.

I'm Miss Sutherland and I'll be teaching you today.

Our learning outcome for today is to be able to apply effective reading skills to an unseen fiction text.

I'm so excited to get stuck into some reading with you today and really unpick an extract with the excellent reading skills that we learn.

We have five key words for today's lesson.

They are comprehend, context, decode, perspective, and genre.

I'll give you a moment now to read the definitions for those words and familiarise yourself with them.

Don't worry, we'll be revisiting all these keywords in today's lesson.

So here are our learning cycles for today.

In learning cycle one, we'll develop our reading skills.

So that's where we're going to meet our unseen extract.

And today's unseen extract is by Murakami and it's the opening of his novel, "After Dark." I'm really excited to read that with you.

We'll be learning about some really useful reading skills to apply to that extract and in the second learning cycle we'll take a closer look at the city.

So we'll be digging deeper into the extract and looking at one of the things Murakami describes, which is the city.

So let's get started with developing our reading skills.

When we read fiction texts, we have to read carefully in order to comprehend and therefore enjoy it.

Remember, to comprehend means to understand completely, so we have to read our fiction texts carefully in order to fully understand them and therefore enjoy them.

Here are two techniques you can use when you first encounter a new text to aid your comprehension.

You can use context to help you figure out what is happening and use active reading strategies.

Now using context is all about what we do before we actually read the full text.

Reading context is about looking at the background information of the text.

So here is an example of how we can use context.

Before we read our fiction text, we can make a prediction about what it could be about by considering the context.

The context, as I said, is the background of a fiction text and it may include some or all of the following points here.

It may include the title, it may include the author or the year it was published.

So we can study the title, the author and the year a text was published in order to make predictions.

Let's go through this for "After Dark." So the passage we are going to read is from the novel "After Dark" by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, and it was published in 2004.

I want you to come up with some quick ideas now.

What can you predict about this text? I'll give you a moment to reflect.

Perhaps you interrogated the title a little bit and made the prediction that this could be an extract that's from a novel taking place at nighttime.

Potentially, you looked at the year it was published and thought perhaps this is quite a modern text, considering it was published in 2004.

Haruki Murakami being a Japanese author may give you some clues about where the text could be set or may give you some clues about different cultural elements of the text.

Now let's check your understanding of what we've just talked about.

How can context help with our comprehension of fiction texts? Does context provide background information to help us make predictions about a text? Does context tell us everything about a text or does context give us the meaning of unfamiliar words? Pause the video and check your understanding.

Well done if you said context helps with our comprehension of fiction texts because it provides background information to help us make predictions about a text.

And as we've just seen, we can use things such as the title of a text, the author of a text, and the year a text was published to help us make these solid predictions about the text.

Now, discuss this.

Whilst reading a fiction text, what strategies would you use to decode a word you did not recognise? Remember, decode means work out the meaning of, so when you're reading a fiction text, how would you work out the meaning of a word you didn't recognise? Pause the video and discuss.

You may have said that in order to work out the meaning of a word you didn't recognise, you could read the words around the unfamiliar word.

We can look at the prefixes and suffixes in a word to help us work out the meaning.

And we can also look at the root words within a word to help us work out the meaning.

So I want you now to read the opening of chapter one of "After Dark," from Eyes to foreboding.

Your top tip to help you along the way is ask yourself questions as you read.

This can be a really helpful strategy to check your understanding of what you're reading.

Pause the video and enjoy your reading.

Now, I hope you enjoyed reading that extract.

Don't worry if you don't completely understand what's going on yet.

We'll read it many, many times to help with your comprehension.

I want you to discuss what questions might you ask your partner to check they have understood this text.

Pause the video and consider the questions you'd ask.

Off you go.

Here are some examples of questions you could ask your partner.

You could ask what is being described in the extract.

You could ask at what time of day is the extract taking place.

You could ask, what does Murakami compare the city to? Well done on reading that brilliant but complex extract.

Now let's check your understanding of some of the reading skills we've talked about.

Which of the following could be a helpful strategy for checking you understand what you are reading? Pause the video and answer that question.

Well done if you said a useful strategy to check our understanding of what we're reading is to ask ourselves questions about the text.

And the questions you might be asking are the ones we've just discussed, such as what is being described here, what is the city being compared to and when is this taking place? What feelings am I getting when I read this? Now, I want you to discuss the questions below.

These questions and talking about them with your partner is really going to help you further comprehend this text.

So number one, what stood out to you in the text? Talking about what we find powerful in a text helps us to unravel what it is that makes the text engaging.

And when we do that, we show we understand it.

Number two, what feelings did the text give you? Number three, what do you think the text is about? Number four, which perspective is the text being told from? And number five, what genre do you think the text belongs to? Pause the video and discuss those five questions now.

Here are some of the ideas you might have had.

So for what stood out to you, let me talk about what stood out to me.

The futuristic feel to this extract stood out to me.

Number two, what feelings did the text give you? The extract made me feel like something ominous might happen because of the words flicker, flare and squirm.

So I had a rather unsettled feeling when I was reading this extract.

Number three, what do you think the text is about? The text describes a city as the time approaches midnight.

Number four, which perspective is the text being told from? Remember, perspective means point of view.

The text is told from the third person perspective or point of view.

What genre do you think the text belongs to? The genre of text may be dystopian or sci-fi because of language such as arteries, creature and organisms. There are some really unusual language choices in this extract, which makes me think that this text might include elements outside of our ordinary experiences.

Let's move on now to take a closer look at the city in Murakami's "After Dark." The way Murakami has described the city is really interesting and powerful.

I want us to dig deeper into that.

Now, summarise the passage you have just read aloud.

This is gonna really check if you understand what you've read.

Ensure your summary includes who or what the text is focused on, what action is happening in the text, where the text is set, and when the text is set.

Pause the video and summarise the passage you have just read aloud.

Off you go.

Here's my summary.

The opening of Murakami's "After Dark" is focused on a city.

In this extract, we see the action of the city at night.

We see how the city is in constant motion and how the city is rather busy even at nighttime.

Although we don't know the exact location of this city, we might predict or assume that this is a modern city, that this city is in the middle of quite a developed country.

Now, every fiction extract will usually have a main focus.

As we've said, in the opening of "After Dark," the main focus is on a city.

Now, I want you to pick out three important phrases from the text that describe the city.

Make sure you're really digging through the extract to find the phrases that stand out to you the most, because I want you to be justifying why you chose them in a moment.

So pause the video and find your three powerful phrases from the text that describe the city.

Off you go.

Now you've got your three phrases.

Think about why you chose those three phrases.

Pause the video and reflect.

Well done.

You've managed to find some really interesting phrases about the city.

Now, in your own words, how would you describe the city? Pause the video and discuss.

I heard some really brilliant ideas there.

Some of you said the city comes across as ominous.

Some of you said the city comes across as alive.

Some of you said the city comes across as really busy.

Well done on coming up with your own interpretation.

That is a really important part of our comprehension.

Now let's check your understanding of what we've just discussed.

True or false? "After Dark" creates an impression of a utopia.

Pause the video and reflect.

Is that true or false? Well done if you said that is false.

"After Dark" does not create an impression of a utopia.

Remember, a utopia is a perfect place.

So "After Dark," does it not create an impression of a perfect place? Now, I want you to justify your answer.

Is that because Murakami seemed to describe a city of the past? Or is that because the city seemed to have a dark feel to it? Pause the video and justify your answer now.

Well done If you said "After Dark" does not create an impression of a utopia, does not create an impression of a perfect place because this city seems to have a dark feel to it.

And we've come to that conclusion because of the way in which Murakami describes it as "Alive At Nighttime." We don't really expect a city to be so alive at nighttime.

It seems out of the ordinary.

We could also say that the city has a dark feel to it because of the way in which Murakami describes it to a living entity with arteries, with blood cells that sends and collects data.

That goes against what we expect a city to feel like.

It has quite a mechanical, biological feel to it, rather than a homely, cosy or welcoming feel to it.

Now, I want you to justify each of the statements below using as much relevant evidence as possible.

So I want you to find evidence for the city being presented as a living being, for the city being presented as busy and active, for the city being presented in an ominous way, and for the city being presented as dangerous.

By justifying each of these statements, it's going to enable you to show your understanding of the extract.

So pause the video and collect your evidence for each of the statements below.

Off you go.

Let's go through some ideas now.

So for this city being presented as a living being, you may have come up with the words, creature, organism, and arteries.

All of those words are words we use to describe a living being or are words that might be applied to human beings.

Now, the city is presented as busy and active.

You could have found continuous, data, pulsing, flicker, sending and collecting.

We have a lot of evidence to suggest that the city is presented as busy and active.

Now, what evidence do we have to show the city is presented in an ominous way? Squirm, moan, and elusive support that the city is presented in an ominous way.

And lastly, the city being presented as dangerous.

We might come up with squirm and foreboding.

Well done on coming up with all that evidence to support a variety of ideas about the city.

I hope you've really been able to get to grips with Murakami's "After Dark" in this lesson, and I hope you've enjoyed reading it.

Here's what we've learned today.

We can use context to help us make predictions about the text.

We can use other words in the sentence to help us decode words or sentences we don't understand.

Considering the questions that arise as we read and looking for hints at the answers deepens our understanding of texts.

To demonstrate our comprehension, we need to be able to summarise what we have read and picking out relevant quotes to support ideas can demonstrate our comprehension of a text.

Very well done in today's lesson.

You've tackled a complex extract and you worked really, really hard in unravelling it.

Thank you for joining me and I hope to see you in another lesson soon.