2. The length and frequency of the pause which sets off the groups is dependent upon the context and upon the listeners. If the context is serious, or if the listeners are uneducated, there will of necessity be many groups. And obversely, if the context is not serious or difficult, or if the audience is educated, there will be fewer and longer groups.
Question: What is the situation in the present selection?
3. In the study of the chief word in the group we must remember that its real meaning depends upon its relation to the other words in the same group. For instance, the word “fire” does not mean the same thing at all times. The meaning of this word depends upon its kinship with other members of the same group. When we say, “The house is on fire,” this word “fire” means an altogether different thing than when we say, “There is a fire in the stove this morning.” Let us take care that we do not isolate words, but that we get their associative meanings.
Questions: What are the important words in the various groups? What is the real meaning of each? Why? Give five synonyms of each.
III. Reference to Experience
We are now prepared to call upon our storehouse of past experiences in order that we may identify ourselves more closely with the author’s meaning. We are to react upon what we read. The more vividly we can bring what we read from the page into our own actual experience, the more deeply are we impressed with its meaning. We translate the unseen, the unfelt and unbelieved by likening it to what is already seen, felt or believed. If experience is lacking, we draw upon our imagination.
1. If we are reading a description, we will see this scene in terms of a past like experience.
2. If we are reading a narration, we will feel it in terms of a past like experience.
3. If we are reading something we have not believed, we will accept it in terms of what we have already believed.