APPLYING ANALYTICAL THINKING IN LITERATURE
Literature is an efficacious mechanism for developing analytical skills (Open Resources for English Language Teaching). Teaching them to analyze and evaluate literary texts appropriate to their age and interests helps them enhance critical skills. To apply analytical thinking, one should take notions of the following methodologies:
- Relationship Between Events
– In understanding literary texts, one should not focus on understanding the meaning of difficult words. Still, instead, they should look at the coherent relationship between the events in the literary piece. Obliterated is often the result when the individual gets stuck in knowing the definition. It is significant to understand the meaning, but getting fixed on this idea is not good.
- Drawing Inferences
According to Literary Terms, Inference is a technique of concluding the pieces of evidence gathered. It is applied when there are clues given in the literary works, and the reader will come up with an idea of how well the story unfolds. The author implies the information, and the reader will be the one to infer.
Example:
I haven’t seen Mary in the studio. She said she was not feeling well, so she must have gone home.
In the example as the person looking for Mary didn’t find her, then s/he inferred that Mary must have gone home.
- Evidence Synthesis
– It is also known as the systematic review which is a scheme of combining information from numerous sources. This method is a comprehensive literature synthesis that mainly focuses on well-formulated research. This method is a rigorous way of understanding the literary pieces of text. Multiple readings and intensive research are needed to understand the context of the literary work fully.
The discernment of literary pieces depends on what type it is. Readers, literary lovers, or any individual should apply and focus on the appropriate methodology.
