Close Reading Order of Operations:

  • Step 1: Detect a Pattern
  • Step 2: Form a Hypothesis

In your last post, you observed patterns in The War of the Worlds. In this post, we will build on that work by practicing Step 2: Form a Hypothesis. This post has two steps.

(1) Detect a Pattern: Using what we’ve read so far from Dawn, begin the process of close reading by detecting a pattern in the text, just as you did for your last post. Document that pattern with 3-5 specific instances in your post, just as you did in your last post.

(2) Form a Hypothesis: Use the pattern you document to form two different hypotheses about the text. For example, if your pattern concerns a particular style or way in which the Oankali are depicted, what does this pattern suggest about how/why this particular style of depiction is important for the novel? What might it tell us? In other words, what is your hypothesis about why this pattern is meaningful? You will do this twice, using the same pattern each time. Note that I am not asking you to form hypotheses about what might happen in the story. Rather, you are beginning the process of analyzing the text by forming hypotheses about why what “happens” in the text matters to its meaning.

I know we haven’t yet read all of Dawn. That’s ok. That’s why these are called “hypotheses.” In this post you are simply thinking aloud about what the data you have gathered seems to suggest about two possible interpretations of the text.

I also know that it may be quite difficult to come up with two different hypotheses that could potentially be supported by the same set of evidence. That’s also ok. That’s the point, in fact.

Your post should look something like this when you’re done:

Pattern: Description of overall pattern. How are all your pieces of evidence below related?

  • Description of example if needed. Do you need to explain exactly how/why this is an instance of the pattern you identify above?: “Example 1 from text. Notice how I am typing the exact quote as it appears in the text into my post” (page number where I found the quote).
  • Description of example if needed. Do you need to explain exactly how/why this is an instance of the pattern you identify above?: “Example 2 from text” (page number).
  • Description of example if needed. Do you need to explain exactly how/why this is an instance of the pattern you identify above?: “Example 3 from text” (page number).
  • Etc

Hypothesis 1: Explanation of hypothesis and how you arrived at this hypothesis from the evidence above.

Hypothesis 2: Explanation of hypothesis and how you arrived at this hypothesis from the evidence above.