Analyzing Documents for Content

Alright, so you all have in front of you your document. Remember just by reading the bold print at the top, we found the title; "Book of Gods and Rites" by Diego Duran written in the 16th century. We also know just by reading our background information that the topic is Aztec sacrifice. So that part of our chart is filled in. Now we need to look at the boxes that deal with the actual content. You'll remember from our strategies on reading documents for content that we need to read this document twice. The first time that you read through, you're reading to get the topic and the main idea, so if you didn't get the topic from the background information, you need to get that. But more importantly, you need to go back and get the main idea, by reading it through once. What does the text ACTUALLY say. (Seriously, just get the words from the text) that tells us about the topic. So main idea comes directly from the text. Reading it again, the second time, that's when we look for our inferences. And because we are inferring, we are learning about the topic not by what it says right in the text but by what it implies. What it suggests. to us, as a reader. So that time we have to go much more slowly to find inferences and to see if there are any questions that we have after reading this document TWICE about the process of Aztec sacrifice.