The following section Students who need more work on using text details is presented as an example of how you might foreground the Key Competencies within reading. In particular, it exemplifies how you might foreground "Using language, symbols, and texts" and, to a lesser extent, "Thinking" within reading through a focus on the way authors construct characters with carefully chosen details. This approach requires students to not just understand the text but to understand how the text is constructed and why it is constructed that way. This idea is expanded below. In the table below, Using language, symbols, and texts has the largest bolded font because it is the most important to this particular example.

Students who need more work on using text details.Writers build characters with details. Good writers are meticulous in their choice of details, including only those that add value and meaning to the description of a character. It is these details, as well as background knowledge, that a reader uses in order to respond to questions such as "How do you know Jon is sure that he can last the longest without blinking?", "Did Jon deserve to be tricked?" and "Do you like Jon?"

Details: telling and showing

Writers may choose to use details that tell readers about characters if they want to convey information quickly. For example:

Paul tried hard.... (p.8)

However by telling the reader that Paul "tried hard ", the writer has not given the reader the opportunity to come to their own conclusions about the effort Paul was making; and, increasingly, modern readers expect to have that opportunity.

More commonly, writers of fiction will choose to use details that show characters to readers. For example:

Jon flopped down onto the sofa. (p.11)

Here the reader must infer why Jon does this: perhaps he is feeling tired, perhaps he is over weight, or maybe he is feeling confident (a less confident person/ a person who doubted himself would move more slowly/ tentatively).

Ask your students to compare how they respond to having the opportunity to come to their own conclusion about why Jon "flopped" onto the couch with how they would respond if the author had simply told them "Jon was convinced he would win".

Details: general and specificWhen writers tell readers about characters they use details that are general or broad. For example, Sally says to Jon he's playing:

"...a silly game." (p.8)

The word "silly" is general (or abstract); it has a broad rather than specific meaning because it can be generally applied to all sorts of situations. You might like to ask your students to tell you about the situations "silly" can be applied to in an attempt to show them that it is not specific to any particular situation. (Note that at this point your students will probably be unclear about why "silly" is general; in fact they may even argue that it has a specific meaning. It will probably not be until the end of the following exercise that they have a clearer understanding.)

However, when writers show characters to readers they use specific (or concrete) details. For example:

[Sally, Paul, and, eventually, Jon's eyes begin to] ...shake... and bulge...and...BLINK! (pp.7, 8, and 12.)

Here readers create an image that is specific. They create a vivid picture in their heads; they can "see" this image. Most importantly, it is vivid pictures like this one that have impact upon readers.

Finally, ask your students to attempt to create a picture in their heads of someone who is being "silly" (you may need to explain at some point that it is impossible unless they imagine a specific situation).