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| Author |
Message |
remmers
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Reading: Lesson One
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Mar 26 11:06 UTC 1992 |
Welcome, new readers. Perhaps you've never read a thing before,
but if you study this lesson assiduously, you will be acquainted
with simple reading skills that will enable you to peruse such
common, everyday texts as the Telephone Book and the Sports
Section with partial to complete comprehension.
The basic building blocks of printed text are letters. For
example, here is a letter:
X
There are 25 other letters. To save space, we won't list them
here, but it is important to understand the difference between
a letter and a punctuation mark. An example of a punctuation
is
,
There, that was easy, wasn't it? Now that we have the basic
building blocks "under our belt", let's move on to groups of
letters, commonly called "words". It's pretty easy to tell
when something is a word. For example
DICK
is a word, but
DICK AND JANE
is not a word; it is three words.
Words are grouped into units called sentences. It is easy to
tell a sentence from something that is not a sentence by the
fact that it ends with a punctuation mark "." called a period.
Like all rules about writing, that's not a hard and fast rule
though. Some sentences end with other marks, such as "?" or
"!", or perhaps with nothing at all if the author forgets.
Even authors are not perfect
Sentences are but stepping-stones to the next unit that readers
need to be concerned about: paragraphs. Now, paragraphs are
very easy to spot. A paragraph is just an ordered sequence
of sentences. The first line of a paragraph is either indented
or separated from the preceeding text by a blank line. You can
usually tell the last line of a paragraph by the fact that it
is significantly shorter than the other lines which are in it.
There, that's all for today. We've covered the art of reading
all the way up to paragraphs. Using what you've learned, you
will be able to read, for example, one-paragraph stories in the
Sports Section. You can tell when a story is more than one
paragraph by the fact that you will not be able to read it.
But do not lose hope; you will be able to read such stories after
studying Lesson Two.
To test your understanding of today's lesson, here are some
Exercises:
1. Which of the following are words?
(a) HIEROGLYPH
(b) MADONNA
(c) SPORTS
(d) All of the above and all of the below
(e) All of the above
2. In Chekov's "Three Sisters", what is the significance of
stage setting in developing the theme of the play?
3. Get a dictionary and look through it. How many words can
you spot?
Happy reading!
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| 72 responses total. |
katie
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response 1 of 72:
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Mar 26 15:58 UTC 1992 |
terrific!
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shannara
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response 2 of 72:
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Mar 26 17:00 UTC 1992 |
<chuckle>
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danr
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response 3 of 72:
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Mar 26 23:55 UTC 1992 |
Sorry, don't really have time to respond. I'm too busy counting
words in my dictionary.
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jdg
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response 4 of 72:
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Mar 27 02:24 UTC 1992 |
"I try to catch every sentence, every word you and I say, and quickly lock
all these sentences and words away in my literary storehouse because they
might come in handy."
The Seagull, translated by Ronald Hingly, from Act II
- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov -
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keats
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response 5 of 72:
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Mar 27 03:16 UTC 1992 |
darn. now i have to go back and check in which conference we are.
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suzie
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response 6 of 72:
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Jun 27 18:31 UTC 1992 |
Are those trick questions? As far as #3 goes, I can spot every
single word in my dictionary - every one, so there! Danr is confused.
And about #1 ... (a) is not, (b) is not, (c) is not, (d) is not and
(e) is not. All the rest are..
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carl
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response 7 of 72:
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Feb 18 21:46 UTC 1993 |
Ah, the soul of a spam on rye.
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aa8ij
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response 8 of 72:
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Mar 15 22:07 UTC 1993 |
still checking in my dictionary... I'll get back to you guys.
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other
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response 9 of 72:
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Mar 24 08:59 UTC 1994 |
Well, the set helps develop the setting of the era in which the action takes
place. Since the time of the story is so closely related to the issues with
which the story deals, the stage setting gives additional context for the
audience.
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carl
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response 10 of 72:
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Mar 24 12:03 UTC 1994 |
Okay, but what's your answer to questions 2 and 3?
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kentn
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response 11 of 72:
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Mar 24 13:21 UTC 1994 |
I can't read any of this to even learn about it. (My cat typed this).
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rcurl
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response 12 of 72:
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Mar 24 14:35 UTC 1994 |
Aha! I found a WORD in my dictionary! Do you have one yet, aa8ij?
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carl
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response 13 of 72:
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Mar 24 14:54 UTC 1994 |
I can't find any words in my dictionary. Someone put these
intricate blotches of ink on the paper and now I can't tell
what was there.
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omni
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response 14 of 72:
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Mar 24 19:24 UTC 1994 |
I don't have a dictionary, nor a HD.
I have several crossword and foriegn language dictionaries though.
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anne
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response 15 of 72:
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Mar 24 23:10 UTC 1994 |
Know that I can read, who will show me how to Write?
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vidar
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response 16 of 72:
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Mar 25 02:30 UTC 1994 |
...
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vishnu
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response 17 of 72:
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Mar 25 13:51 UTC 1994 |
Very.
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carl
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response 18 of 72:
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Mar 26 16:39 UTC 1994 |
re 15: It's easy.
Just pour yourself an extra cup of coffee, turn on some quiet music
in the background, sit comfortably in front of your computer, place
the keyboard in easy reach, and...
"You put your write hand in,
You put your write hand out,
You put your write hand in,
And you shake it all about..."
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bubbles
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response 19 of 72:
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Mar 26 18:55 UTC 1994 |
Are Unix file names like .cflist and mbox words?
Are Unix commands like ls -al sentences?
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anne
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response 20 of 72:
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Mar 26 20:17 UTC 1994 |
carl- that's awful!!! :)
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carl
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response 21 of 72:
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Mar 27 02:41 UTC 1994 |
(it comes from years of practice)
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vidar
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response 22 of 72:
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Mar 27 02:47 UTC 1994 |
Does someone feel a slight breeze in here?
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ziggy
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response 23 of 72:
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Mar 27 22:04 UTC 1994 |
yes.
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danr
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response 24 of 72:
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Mar 28 17:13 UTC 1994 |
Writing is easy; it's making sense that's tough.
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