Literary Texts Part 1

Literary Texts Part 1

On to literary texts, also known as fiction. First of all, many of the same skills you need to know to answer informational text questions also apply to literary texts. However, literary texts present some unique challenges. As a result, you’ll need to know just a few extra skills.

Identifying Plot Elements

In the smallest of nutshells, plot is what happens in the story. The first step in understanding plot involves identifying the conflict – the issue/problem/etc. that drives the story. Conflict can take many forms, such as an argument between two characters or something external that is affecting the characters’ lives.

HINT: Dialogue between characters will often reveal a literary text’s conflict.

Making Inferences

The HiSET Language Arts: Reading test uses passages from short stories and novels. Not having access to the full narrative will force you to make inferences (i.e., educated guesses) about the plot, characters’ motivations, etc.

Making inferences is an advanced skill, but one you can practice by asking yourself a simple question when reading a passage – “What does this dialogue/sentence/paragraph/etc. suggest about the story as a whole?” Everything an author puts into a story has a purpose. If you can think of an answer, you can compare it to the answer choices and choose the best one.

Analyzing Characters

Like real people, characters in a story are complex. They have unique motivations, desires, and fears. In a literary narrative, an outside narrator may describe a character, or the story can take place from one character’s point of view. Identifying point of view can help you understand through which ‘lens’ a story is told.

You can also make inferences about a character by observing their actions and examining their dialogue. This should be easy, as it’s something you do all the time when you meet a new person.

Identifying/Analyzing Theme

A story’s theme describes the unique point of view and message a story wants to convey. It is not a simple description of what a story is about. For example, the classic fable about the tortoise and the hare is about two animals who race one another. The tortoise wins after the hare decides to take a nap on the race course. The story’s theme is that perseverance is sometimes more important than athletic ability.

Expect literary narratives on the HiSET to have more complicated themes. Here are some tips you can use to identify/analyze theme:

  • See if the story reveals the theme directly.
    • If not, consider what life lesson this story could teach someone. Your answer reveals the theme.
      • Your guess may not be 100% the same thing as the correct answer choice, but you should be able to spot similarities.
  • Identify evidence supporting the theme.
    • HiSET questions may ask you to cite a quote or line supporting the theme.

Identifying Style

An author’s unique style refers to their word choice, structure, figurative language, and other choices involved when putting words on the page. Some authors write description and dialogue in short, simple sentences. Others use flowery, almost poetic language.

For these reasons, it’s important to consider how an author writes just as much as what they write about.