pre- reading underground railroad

Pre-read the novel and respond to the questions below. Pre-reading is a great strategy to ‘prime’ your mind for what you’re about to read. In technical terms, you’re activating your schema and tapping into any prior knowledge you may have about a subject. This way, when you start reading, you’re not moving in unfamiliar territory. We did this with our midterm article, and now we will do this with our novel.

• Step 1: Flip through the book a bit.
  • Look at the front cover, the back cover, read some of the inside pages ( I would avoid reading the preface or author introduction/forward), read the first few pages of the novel, and read the epigraph.
• Step 2: Then, describe what you think the novel will be about and why you think so. Focus on not just plot (what will happen) but what you think larger themes, messages, or symbols will be. There is no right answer and you’re encouraged to guess. Of course if you’ve already read some, please don’t spoil plot points and focus more on guessing the themes/messages. The purpose here is not to guess “right” or correctly but to think ahead.
  
  • Some questions to get you started:
    • What does the title make you think of?
    • What images do you see on the cover? What does that remind you of? What do the colors evoke?
    • Have you heard of this author? What do you know about him?
    • What do you glean for the flipping through?