DESCRIBING AN ESTABLISHED MEANING

First:

Introduce the suspect. Identify the genre of the text.

Second:

Introduce the scene of the crime. Read the text thoroughly. As you are reading, identify the type of
sentences that could be seen in the text.

Third:

Introduce the witnesses. Focus on descriptive sentences. Take note of sentences that bluntly describe or
depict a concept, person, place, or idea.

Fourth:

Be very careful of passages that does not explicitly state the meaning of an idea. Use your context clues
and critical thinking skills well in defining the ideas found in the text.

Fifth:

Never go beyond the text.

DEBATING AN ESTABLISHED MEANING

First:

Identify the suspect. Identify the author, the time the text was written, the author’s country, culture and
tradition, text’s words, structure, and etymology and the reason why the text was written. Basically,
profile the author and the text.

Second:

Find evidences. Look at the profile of the author and cross-examine it with the described meaning. Find
overlaps between the two that could promote a new meaning to the text.

For example, find an issue prominent in the time the text was written and try to apply the described
meaning of the text to it. See if it connects.

Third:

Discredit the suspect. Use the evidences you have gathered to debate the established meaning. Argue
that the first meaning is superficial and the text, through deep and holistic interpretation, means
something else.