READING SKILLS
6.1
Introduction
Reading is the receptive skill in the written mode. It can develop independently of
listening and speaking skills, but often develops along with them, especially in societies with a
highly-developed literary tradition. Reading can help build vocabulary that helps listening
comprehension at the later stages, particularly.
6.2
Micro-skills
Following are some of the micro-skills involved in reading. The reader has to:
(1) Decipher the script. In an alphabetic system or a syllabary, this means
establishing a relationship between sounds and symbols. In a pictograph system,
it means associating the meaning of the words with written symbols.
(2) Recognize vocabulary.
(3) Pick out key words, such as those identifying topics and main ideas.
(4) Figure out the meaning of the words, including unfamiliar vocabulary, from the
(written) context.
(5) Recognize grammatical word classes: noun, adjective, etc.
(6) Detect sentence constituents, such as subject, verb, object, prepositions, etc.
(7) Recognize basic syntactic patterns.
(8) Reconstruct and infer situations, goals and participants.
(9) Use both knowledge of the world and lexical and grammatical cohesive devices to
make the foregoing inferences, predict outcomes, and infer links and connections
among the parts of the text.
(10) Get the main point or the most important information.
(11) Distinguish the main idea from supporting details.
(12) Adjust reading strategies to different reading purposes, such as skimming for
main ideas or studying in-depth.
6.2.1
Skimming and Scanning
Skimming and Scanning are very important reading techniques. In short, skimming
refers to looking through material quickly to gather a general sense of the ideas,
information, or topic itself. When you skim, you read through an article three to four
times faster than when you read each word. Scanning refers to reading through material
to find specific information. When you scan, you run your eyes over text or information
to pull out specific words, phrases, or data. For example:

You quickly go through a twenty-page report in a few minutes, and determine the
overall subject, tone, and a few key points. This is skimming.

You pick up the newspaper in the doctor's office, thumb through the first few
pages, and gather the gist of the events happening in the world. This is
skimming.

You flip through an accounting report to find a particular set of data. This is
scanning.

You open the classified section of a newspaper, find the automobile section, and
then mark a few cars within your price range. This is scanning.
Skimming and scanning work in tandem. For English learners, both techniques should
always be encouraged because, with practice, students realize that every word doesn't need to
be read and fully understood. Good skimming and scanning skills means that they will no
longer be so strictly bound by the text, nor their reading and comprehension speed. There are
applications both inside and outside the classroom.
In the classroom, you may ask students to find specific key words in an article, or
answer questions for comprehension, or decide on the purpose of the article. With students
who must read and understand every word, the opportunities for effective discussion becomes
limited. The opportunity to select more challenging articles also becomes limited, otherwise the
entire class may be spent on a line-by-line translation.
Outside the classroom, students may look at bus timetables, job advertisements,
business reports, emails, and so on. A student will need to effectively and quickly gather and
synthesize the information, an impossible expectation if he were to read each word. The sooner
students become accustomed to, develop, and improve their skimming and scanning skills, the
better.
To summarize, the most important types of reading as a skill can be defined as follows:
Skimming: reading rapidly for the main topics
Scanning: reading rapidly to find a specific piece of information
Extensive: reading a longer text often for pleasure with emphasis on overall meaning
Intensive: reading a short text for detailed information
Activity
London is the most populous city in Europe and dominates Britain so it is the sensible
place to start our short tour. All major government offices and the majority of large companies
have their headquarters here. It is the seat of government and the centre of Britain's cultural life.
All the national newspapers, television and radio networks are established in London and it is
where you will find the majority of the great museums and art galleries. It is also the centre of
commerce and the hub of the nation's transport system. The traditional commercial centre of
this great city is The City of London, a surprisingly small, central area with a population of over a
million in the daytime but fewer than 8000 in the evenings and weekends. The West End of
London is known mostly for its theatres, shops and clubs, the East End for its traditional
Cockney culture (but increasingly now a major centre of the financial services and the Press).
London is nearly seven times larger than the country's next largest urban centre and
approximately 20% of the population of Britain lives in the Greater London Area.
Surrounding the outer suburbs of London is an area known as ‘Commuterland'. This part
of Southern England is characterized by expensive housing and dense populations. Millions of
the inhabitants travel to Central London to work and the towns and villages are virtually
deserted during the working day, only coming to life at weekends and in the evenings.
Increasingly, however, many companies are abandoning the high-rental offices and industrial
premises in London and re-locating to this part of the country which saves traveling time and
money for their employees.
Further out from the capital, Southern England has a more rural character. Apart from
the coast, which is well developed, the landscape is surprisingly empty of major development.
To the east, in Kent and parts of Sussex, there are farms growing fruit and vegetables. Further
south, between the great urban centre and the coast, sheep farming dominates and there are
large tracts of open land used for both commercial farming and recreation. The South Downs,
an area of open upland, is the largest and most typical of these mixed-economy areas.
The southern coast is characterized by resort towns, many of which are popular with
Londoners at the weekends because they are less than two hours away and also as areas to
which to retire.
To the west of London, fruit vegetable and sheep farming give way to cereals and cattle.
The West Country is well known as an agricultural and tourist area but there are also large ports
such as Bristol, which once dominated the Atlantic trade with North and South America.
The coastline is dominated by rugged cliffs and small bays and in the interior there are
large open tracts of countryside which are among the most popular tourist destinations in
Britain.
The area to the north-east of London is also mostly open country but without large ports
such as Bristol (although increasing trade with Europe has made this area more important to the
import-export industry). Again, this is a popular tourist destination but, unlike the south and
west, the area is characterized by flat country and thousands of waterways, making it very
popular with boating enthusiasts. The main crops in this area are wheat, barley and other cereal
crops.
South, west and north-east of London, then, the countryside is characteristically rural but
to the north-west of London lies the traditional industrial heartland of Britain. Only one hundred
miles from London is Britain's second city, Birmingham. The area around Birmingham, and
especially further north, developed as the ‘Workshop of the World' during the Industrial
Revolution. Although industrial decline has seen much industry close, this is still Britain's most
important centre of manufacturing industry. Apart from heavy industries, such as mining, steel
and engineering, there are centers producing pottery, textiles and clothing.
Yet further north from this area of industrial activity lies the region of Northern England. Running
up its centre are the Pennine Mountains, popular with holiday makers and walkers as well as a
being a famous wool-producing centre, and to each side of these highlands lie great industrial
cities such as Leeds and Sheffield to the east and Liverpool to the west.
Away from these areas the land is sparsely populated and much of the North West of England is
taken up with England's largest National Park, the Lake District which was home to the
Romantic poets of the 19th Century as well as being the favoured holiday destination for many
of the inhabitants of the cities and towns.
The area is not entirely industrial, however, and there are large areas of countryside as
well as attractive towns such as Stratford, with its Shakespearean connections, Nottingham,
which has successfully capitalized on connections with Robin Hood and, of course, Oxford with
its great universities, libraries and museums. As a result, the area is increasingly important to
the tourist industry and continues to attract visitors from all over the world.
1.
2.
3.
‘Commuterland' is
a.
The area south of London
b.
Places from which people travel to work
c.
The areas close to the West end of London
d.
The suburbs of London
Trade with Europe has
a.
Made some eastern ports more important
b.
Made Bristol less important
c.
Made some areas more popular with tourists.
d.
Made the North-East of London more important
The most important sheep-farming areas are
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
a.
The West, South and North
b.
The South and West
c.
The East and North.
d.
The South and North
From this text London could be described as
a.
Europe's favourite city.
b.
The most important media centre in Britain
c.
The biggest and most important city in Europe
d.
The centre of manufacturing and transport.
The ‘Workshop of the World' was
a.
The North of Britain
b.
The name given to the most important industrial areas.
c.
Birmingham and the surrounding areas.
d.
The area between Birmingham and London.
The South coast is
a.
A place where many Londoners go when they are old.
b.
An area of sheep farming.
c.
An area of cliffs and bays
d.
Flat, open sheep-farming country.
London is
a.
A surprisingly small area.
b.
Traditionally a Cockney city.
c.
About seven times bigger than Birmingham.
d.
An increasingly important newspaper publishing area.
The Text is Best Described as
a.
a commercial guide to Britain
6.3
b.
a general description of the English regions.
c.
a description of the most important towns.
d.
a short guide to Britain.
Previewing: Establishing Context, Purpose, and Content
Before reading, you need a sense of your own purpose for reading. Are you looking for
background information on a topic you know a little bit about already? Are you looking for
specific details and facts that you can marshal in support of an argument? Are you trying to see
how an author approaches her topic rhetorically? Knowing your own purpose in reading will help
you focus your attention on relevant aspects of the text. Take a moment to reflect and clarify
what your goal really is in the reading you’re about to do.
In addition, before reading, you can take steps to familiarize yourself with the
background of the text, and gain a useful overview of its content and structure. Seek information
about the context of the reading (the occasion—when and where it was published—and to
whom it’s addressed), its purpose (what the author is trying to establish, either by explaining,
arguing, analyzing, or narrating), and its general content (what the overall subject matter is).
Take a look for an abstract or an author’s or editor’s note that may precede the article itself, and
read any background information that is available to you about the author, the occasion of the
writing, and its intended audience.
Once you have an initial sense of the context, purpose, and content, glance through the
text itself, looking at the title and any subtitles and noting general ideas that are tipped off by
these cues. Continue flipping pages quickly and scanning paragraphs, getting the gist of what
material the text covers and how that material is ordered. After looking over the text as a whole,
read through the introductory paragraph or section, recognizing that many authors will provide
an overview of their message as well as an explicit statement of their thesis or main point in the
opening portion of the text. Taking the background information, the messages conveyed by the
title, note or abstract, and the information from the opening paragraph or section into account,
you should be able to proceed with a good hunch of the article’s direction.
6.3.1
The Process of Previewing
In the process of previewing, there are two crucial aspects not to be overlooked. They
are described below briefly.
(1)
Consider Your Purpose
(a) Are you looking for information, main ideas, complete comprehension, or detailed
analysis?
(b) How will you use this text?
(2)
Get an Overview of the Context, Purpose, and Content of the Reading
(a) What does the title mean?
(b) What can you discover about the "when," "where," and "for whom" of the article?
(c) What does background or summary information provided by the author or editor
predict the text will do?
(d) What chapter or unit does the text fit into?
Activity
Instructions for learners: Scan the text
a.
b.
c.
d.
6.3.2
Does there seem to be a clear introduction and conclusion? Where?
Are the body sections marked? What does each seem to be about? What claims
does the author make at the beginnings and endings of sections?
Are there key words that are repeated or put in bold or italics?
What kinds of development and detail do you notice? Does the text include
statistics, tables, and pictures or is it primarily prose? Do names of authors or
characters get repeated frequently?
Reading: Annotating a Text
Whatever your purposes are for reading a particular piece, you have three objectives to
meet as your read: to identify the author’s most important points, to recognize how they fit
together, and to note how you respond to them. In a sense, you do the same thing as a reader
every day when you sort through directions, labels, advertisements, and other sources of written
information.
What’s different in college is the complexity of the texts. Here you can’t depend on
listening and reading habits that get you through daily interactions. So you will probably need to
annotate the text, underlining or highlighting passages and making written notes in the margins
of texts to identify the most important ideas, the main examples or details, and the things that
trigger your own reactions. Devise your own notation system. We describe a general system in
a box close by but offer it only as a suggestion. Keep in mind, though, that the more precise
your marks are and the more focused your notes and reactions, the easier it will be to draw
material from the text into your own writing. But be selective: the unfortunate tendency is to
underline (or highlight) too much of a text. The shrewd reader will mark sparingly, keeping the
focus on the truly important elements of a writer’s ideas and his or her own reactions.
6.3.3
The Process of Reading & Annotating
A critical aspect during reading any text is ‘recalling your purpose’, and can be explained
in the points given below.
(1) What are you looking for?
(2) How will you use what you find? Identify the weave of the text:
(3) Double underline the author’s explanation of the main point(s) and jot "M.P." in
the margin. (Often, but not always, a writer will tell an engaged reader where the
text is going.)
(4) Underline each major new claim that the author makes in developing the text and
write "claim 1," "claim 2," and so on in the margin.
(5) Circle major point, of transition from the obvious (subtitles) to the less obvious
(phrases like however, on the other hand, for example, and so on).
(6) Asterisk major pieces of evidence like statistics or stories or argument note in the
margin the kind of evidence and its purpose, for example, "story that illustrates
claim."
(7) Write "concl." in the margin at points where the writer draws major conclusions.
Locate passages and phrases that trigger reactions.
(8) Put a question mark next to points that are unclear and note whether you need
more information or the author has been unclear or whether the passage just
sounds unreasonable or out-of-place.
(9) Put an exclamation point next to passages that you react to strongly in
agreement, disagreement, or interest.
(10) Attach a post-it note next to trigger passages and write a brief reaction as you
read.
6.4
Reviewing: Organizing, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Reacting
Having read through a text and annotating it, your goal in reviewing it is to re-examine
the content, the structure, and the language of the article in more detail, in order to confirm you
sense of the author’s purpose and to evaluate how well they achieved that purpose. When you
review a piece of writing, you will often start by examining the propositions (main points or
claims) the writer lays out and the support he or she provides for those propositions, noticing the
order in which these arguments and evidence are presented. Making an informal outline that
lists the main points, mapping out the essay, is one very effective way of reviewing a text. Here
a well marked text will really save you time.
As you work through your review, you should also tune in to the rhetorical choices the
author has made, analyzing how the article is put together. Ask yourself what the writer is
actually claiming, and why she or he organized the piece in this way. What does the introduction
accomplish? What functions do the individual paragraphs serve? What patterns of thinking does
the author use to drive home the main points? Your notes already tell you what the writer says;
you’re now getting at what the writing does. You will also want to make note of the tone and
attitude used to support and elaborate the writer’s view. Is the writer serious or humorous? How
can you tell? Does the writer seem to be offering only information or stating an opinion and
backing it up? How do you know? Keep returning to the text for specific examples.
Finally, as you review the text, sorting out its organization and analyzing its rhetorical
moves, evaluate the effectiveness of the text and the validity of the claims and evidence. At this
point you’re judging for yourself whether the initial promise of the article has been kept and how
the writer’s values stack up against yours. To keep track of your ideas, use your journal: identify
any questions you have after this re-reading, and note any insights the reading has provoked in
you.
6.4.1
The Process of Reviewing
As you review texts, let the reading situation guide you. While each of the following
strategies uncovers one aspect of a text, you may decide not to work with all of them or to work
in this order. Also, don’t get caught up in finding the right answers to a specific set of questions.
There is almost always more than one way to sort out a piece of writing.
Given below are some helpful tips to guide any reader to organize and review any kind of text
with an aim of comprehensive understanding.
(1) Use the main point and claims that you have identified to create a simple outline, and
then put the transitions and conclusions the writer makes in their place on the
outline.
(2) Give a name to each subsection and explain what writer "says" in the section and
also what the section "does" to advance the flow of the text.
(3) Write a paragraph description of the overall pattern of the text. Feel the text.
(4) Write a paragraph that explores the attitude of the writer. Is she or he being serious,
humorous, angry, ironic, informative, argumentative, combative.
(5) Skim through the text and find evidence of the attitude you suspect. Analyze the text.
(6) Write on your outline brief one or two sentence explanations of how each part of the
text—claim or pieces of evidence, transitions—connects to each other part.
(7) In a paragraph, explain how each part accomplishes the writer’s purpose. Evaluate
the text.
(8) In your journal, review what you know about the author and the publication. Are they
trustworthy sources for the topic? Does the writer or publication have an obvious
bias?
(9) Review the evidence you noticed. Is there enough of it? Is each claim supported? Is
the evidence concrete, referring verifiable examples, statistics, and research?
(10) Review the claims the writer makes. Are they clear and logically coherent? Do
they all relate to the topic? React to the text.
(11) List the points that trigger a reaction in you.
(12) Free write a brief response to each trigger point. What reaction did you have on
your first reading? What do you need to better understand? What is interesting to
you?
Activity
To a philosopher, wisdom is not the same as knowledge. Facts may be known in
prodigious numbers without the knower of them loving wisdom. Indeed, the person who
possesses encyclopedic information may actually have a genuine contempt for those who love
and seek wisdom. The philosopher is not content with a mere knowledge of facts. He desires to
integrate and evaluate facts, and to probe beneath the obvious to the deeper orderliness behind
the immediately given facts. Insight into the hidden depths of reality, perspective on human life
and nature in their entirety, in the words of Plato, to be a spectator of time and existence-these
are the philosopher’s objectives. Too great an interest in the minutiae of science, may, and often
does, obscure these basic objectives.
Philosophers assume that the love of wisdom is a natural endowment of the human
being. Potentially every man is a philosopher because in the depths of his being there is an
intense ongoing to fathom the mysteries of existence. This inner yearning expresses itself in
various ways prior to any actual study of philosophy as a technical branch of human culture.
Consequently every human being, in so far as he has ever been or is a lover of wisdom, has, to
that extent, a philosophy of life.
1.
2.
6.5
The author indicates that a philosopher is a person who
a.
Disregards facts
b.
Loves wisdom
c.
Desires technical knowledge
d.
Collects all types of data
The passage suggests that the philosopher would probably be most opposed to
a.
Quiz shows on television
b.
College courses in philosophy
c.
Courses in natural science
d.
Sales of encyclopedias
Comparing Texts
Texts are written for different purposes, such as to persuade, to illustrate, to describe, to
entertain, or to analyze. Even though you may be presented with two or more texts on a similar
theme or topic, they will probably have different purposes.
For example, in a past NEAB examination1 paper two texts about Great White sharks
were included. The first text was an extract from a CD-ROM encyclopedia about this shark
species and the second text was a newspaper article about a South African man who runs a
business in which you can view sharks from the relative safety of an underwater cage. The
purpose of the encyclopedia entry was to inform the reader and describe the shark, but the
purpose of the article was to argue against cage diving and comment on the impact of this
activity on the town’s tourism industry. Clearly, the different purposes of these texts would
1
NEAB (Northern Examinations and Assessment Board) was an examination board serving England, Wales and
Northern Ireland from 1992 till 2000. It is now part of AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance).
influence the way in which they were written, whether or not they included any biased reporting
and the features of any such biased reporting, and the number of facts they contained in relation
to opinions.
Questions to ask when examining the purpose of a text include:



6.5.1
Comparing Presentation
(1)
One way of identifying the purpose of a text is to look at how it has been
presented. An advertisement will generally be trying to persuade you to buy a
product or use a certain service and will therefore feature writing that aims to
persuade. An extract from a novel or short story will be trying to amuse, entertain
or describe – depending on its genre, while a non-fiction book is more likely to be
factual in nature with the purpose of informing or analyzing. Newspaper articles
differ in purpose – news stories describe or explain events that have happened,
whereas
editorials
discuss
or
comment
on
events.
(2)
Working out what type of text you are reading will help you to establish the
purpose of the text, and then look for features that are associated with that
purpose. For example, instructions might have sub-headings and bullet points, a
persuasive piece of writing would have carefully selected facts and quotations, as
well as words with positive connotations. Questions to ask when comparing the
presentation of texts include:
(a)
(b)
(c)
6.5.2
What is the writer trying to tell me?
What is the purpose of this text?
What type of text is this?
What type of text is this?
What features does a text like this normally employ to fulfill its purpose?
How do the features of the presentation (e.g. headlines, pictures) help the
writer to achieve his or her purpose?
Comparing Facts and Opinions
The purpose of the text will influence how many facts are contained in relation to
opinions. An extract from an encyclopedia is more likely to contain facts than a short story —
this is because an encyclopedia’s primary purpose is to inform, explain or describe. An editorial,
on the other hand, is likely to contain mainly opinions, although these may be based on facts
that are presented in a news story elsewhere in the paper. In advertisements, the facts that are
given are carefully chosen to present the product on offer in the best possible light, and to
persuade the reader to believe that the product is worth having.
Questions to ask when comparing facts and opinions include:



6.5.3
What facts have been included in this text, and why?
What opinions have been included in this text, and why?
Is the author making it clear what his or her opinion is, and how is this done?
Comparing Information
The amount and type of information given will depend on the purpose of the text. In the
case of an advertisement or persuasive political leaflet, sometimes only very little information is
given with a lot of persuasive devices which try to convince you that this is something that you
should believe or support. In other types of texts, such as a pamphlet that explains how to do
something or a travel guide, a lot of information is given with far fewer persuasive features.
Questions to ask when comparing information include:



6.5.4
How does the writer feel about the reader of the text?
Why has this information been given?
What is the writer’s purpose in giving this information?
Comparing Attitudes
Sometimes writers are completely neutral towards their subject matter. For example,
someone who compiles reference books might not be passionate about the material he or she is
handling. But a person writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper, a politician devising a
pamphlet full of propaganda or a satirist making fun of recent events, are examples of writers
who would feel quite strongly about the subject they are covering in a way that would show in
their writing.
As well as considering whether the writer is neutral or passionate towards the subject
matter, you should also consider his or her attitude towards the reader. Is the writer patronizing?
(Does he or she write as if children were going to read the document?) Is the writer convincing?
(Does he or she present an impressive array of reasons that would convince an intelligent
reader?).
Questions to ask when comparing the attitudes of writers:


6.6
How strongly does he or she feel about the subject?
How does he or she feel about the reader of the text?
Various Texts: Text Types
Written communication can be literary or non-literary; therefore, a text either belongs to
the fictional or the non-fictional text group. Especially within the non-fictional text-group the
problem of classification is still open to discussion. Either one follows the concept that the major
communicative functions of the language provide categories for useful distinctions; or one takes
the position that 'the text types correlate with forms and ranges of human cognition'. These are
theoretical norms which in actual texts occur in manifold combinations and individual shapes
(i.e. text forms). According to the latter concept there are five basic text types.
(1)
Descriptive texts basically deal with factual phenomena, e.g. objects and
people. Therefore you find many verbs of 'non-change' (e.g. to be, to stand, lie,
sit etc.) and adverbs of place. Technical description tends to be neutral, exact
and impersonal, while impressionistic description also gives expressions to the
writer's feelings or moods.
(2)
Narrative texts types deal mainly with changes in time, i.e. with actions and
events. Typical text type markers are verbs that denote 'change' as well as
expressions of time (time-sequence signals)); but adverbs of place are not
excluded. Narration is to be found in short stories, novels, biographies,
anecdotes, diaries, news, stories and reports.
(3)
Expository texts tend to be explanatory: they explain objects and ideas in their
interrelations. Typical verbs for the identification and explanation of objects and
ideas are: to refer to, be defined, be called, consists of, contain etc. If a relation
to previously mentioned facts and ideas is to be established, words like namely,
incidentally, for example, in other words, etc. are used. A similarity to preceding
phenomena can be expressed by similarly, also, too; additional information can
be indicated by words like in addition, above all, on top of it all, etc. Typical of this
text type are the expository essay, the definition, the summary and the
interpretative piece.
(4)
Argumentative texts deal with problems and controversial ideas. Reasons for or
against some topic are put forward. The ultimate aim is always to win the
reader/audience round to the author's side. There is a dominantly dialectical text
structure, and words like but, by contrast, however, yet, still, in any case, so, etc.
are linguistic signals of a contrastive text structure. But the basis of any
argumentative text form has to be provided by expository passages, by the
explanation of facts, concepts, developments or processes. While COMMENT
tends to be subjective in character, scientific argument seeks to be objective.
(5)
Instructive texts tell the reader/audience what to do. The instructive text type is
based on the action-demanding sentence. Commercial and political propaganda,
directions, regulations, rules etc. are typical examples because they aim at
influencing behavior.
Seeing the social function, both procedure and explanation texts have the similarity in
which both describe how to make or done something. They give the detail description on
something, phenomena, goods, product case or problem.
To see the differences between explanation and procedure, we have to analyze the
dominant
language
feature
and
how
the
texts
are
used.
Procedure, this text type is commonly called as instruction text. It uses pattern of commend in
building the structure. It use the “to infinitive verb” which is omitted the “to”. It is a kind of
instruction text which uses full commend verb. Procedure is commonly used to describe how to
make something which is close to our daily activity. For example how to make a cup of tea, how
to make a good kite, etc is the best example of the procedure text. It is such word; first boil
water, secondly prepare the cup, and so on.
Explanation, it is commonly used the passive voice in building the text. Explanation is
such a scientific written material. It describes how certain phenomenon or event happen. How a
tornado form, how tsunami works are the best example of explanation text. It uses passive
pattern in describing the topic.
In addition to the main types of texts explained above, some other types of text also include

Reference Texts: These texts list information, usually in alphabetical order for easy use.

Procedural Texts: These texts give instructions. They tell you how to do.

Expository Texts: These texts are non-fiction. The author wants to recount an event,
discuss or explain an idea, argue a point, persuade you or describe something.

Literary texts: These tell a story or describe experiences. The author narrates and uses
language creatively.
Activity
Write down the gist of the following passage:
The, right to disagree, to speak out freely and to demonstrate peacefully against injustice
must be protected both on and off the campus. But any student or college administrator who
cannot understand the difference between peaceful demonstration and destructive attacks,
between freedom of speech and harassment of opposing speakers or between asking for
changes in the law and breaking laws, is not intelligent enough to deserve a place within the
halls of the academy. The majority of students who do understand these distinctions, who are
willing to listen to both sides without booing or jeering and who accept the need for law because
they comprehend the dangers of anarchy, have failed to make their position, clear. Until the
majority speaks out and lends its support to administrators who make the necessary distinctions
and act upon them, a few extremists will continue to give the impression that they and only they
respected the views of those within the colleges and universities. And public confidence in
higher education will continue to decline.
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