#1 (b) - University Level English Skills - 5%

So you want to go to University?! Are you sure?! Just kidding, go for it if it's what you want - but there are some specific skills you will need to master before you can hope to excel at this level of instruction. Two of these are:

• Close Reading 
• Summarizing

Close-reading is the act of carefully scrutinizing a text (story, play, film, song, painting, etc.) and digging for its essential elements - namely, themes, symbols, character developments, etc. It's one of the most important English skill as it is used for nearly every analytical act. Practice it to get better, that's all there is to it.

Here's the assignment sheet for the Close Reading Assignment. (20 marks)
And here's the reading I'd like you to read closely.

Summarizing is another marco-skill. Crucial to good research, summarizing is a general purpose skill any student requires for things like studying, researching and collating notes. The basic skills involves a few steps, but essentially you're going to read, re-read, select main ideas, support with details, and re-write in your own words. Since summaries are often used to synthesize your learning into a format that is not only smaller but also easy for you to understand, putting it into your own words is essential.

Here's the assignment sheet for the Summarizing Assignment. (40 marks)

Got it? Bring any questions to me - it's my job!