Text comprehension: Making inferences and paraphrasing

1. Introduction

Welcome back to another English Lesson! My name is Eugenia Jimenez, and today
we will be reading a text together, trying to make inferences, paraphrase and make
the comprehension of the text easier.

Today we will be reading together “Child-tracking wristbands edge us closer to a

dystopian future by Rory Carroll in Las Vegas.” This is a news article published in
2014.

2. Child-tracking wristbands

This news article is about child-tracking wristbands used on children to track and
control their every move. The author, as mentioned in the title, suggests the idea of
a Dystopian Future as a representation of this type of surveillance.

Remember, the title of an article is a good place to begin when deciphering the
central or main idea. Understanding the meaning of dystopia would help us
understand the author's attitude towards the use of the wristbands he discusses in
the article.

What is dystopia? The definition of Dystopia according to the Merriam Webster

dictionary is: an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched,
dehumanized, fearful lives. Some literary examples you may have heard of or read
that are represented as dystopian societies are The Hunger Games, by Suzanne
Collins, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, and Animal Farm by George
Orwell. All of them are good books for you to read.

In this text the author starts by describing a day in the life of a child who is wearing
the tracking wristband, and how much control this has over him. Since it sends alerts
to the parents, they are able to make changes according to where the child is and
suggest new or different activities.

3. Analyzing the Text

Let’s begin with a brief review of what it means to analyze a text. When you analyze
a text, there are just three steps to follow.
1. State your idea.
2. Cite the evidence in the text that led you to that idea.
3. Explain, or elaborate on, that evidence in your own words.

When you analyze a text, it’s important that you cite the evidence that supports your
own analysis.

Now let’s review a few terms we’ll be using, starting with textual evidence.

Evidence is source-based information including facts, figures, and details used to

support a writer or speaker’s central idea or claim. To put it more simply:
Evidence= support or proof for your opinion, answer, or idea.

To infer is to form an opinion from evidence or to reach a conclusion based on

known facts. When you make an inference, this is the process of drawing a
conclusion from background knowledge and evidence in the text.
Let's start by looking at an example. Please read with me the following extract from
the article.

“I say, God help them. What sort of childhood is it with every move tracked,
scrutinized, logged, judged? Where you cannot wander, try something new, be
spontaneous – be yourself – without issuing a beeping alert from wearable,
connected technology? This is helicopter parenting at its most stultifying, a
constant, hovering presence.”

In the following extract the author is expressing his feeling towards technology child
surveillance.

Let's all make inferences based on this extract and background information
together.

What can we infer about this extract of the news article?

When we make inferences, asking questions is very helpful.

- How does the author feel about the child tracking wristbands?
- Does Rory (the author) agree with the technology advances?
- According to the text, does the word stultifying (used to describe this
parenting style) has a positive or negative connotation?

Using the previous example, when we try to answer the questions, we start to make
inferences and draw conclusions from the text. Remember about all the tools we
have learned in the past. Connotation and denotations, word relationships, figurative
language, morphology, and context clues, are all tools that allow us to make
inferences and draw conclusions in a text.

Let's start answering together one by one:

- How does the author feel about the child tracking wristbands?

We can infer from this extract that the author does not feel happy about the use of
the child tracking wristbands. This inference can be made after reading the way the
author describes the consequences of the use of this device: “tracked, scrutinized,
logged, judged”. These words have a negative connotation in this case, suggesting
that the author does not have positive feelings towards this issue.

- Does Rory (the author) agree with the technology advances?

Moreover, we can also infer that the author does not agree with the use of this
technology.

- According to the text, does the word stultifying (used to describe this
parenting style) has a positive or negative connotation?

The use of most of the words in this extract have a negative connotation, and using
context clues, we can determine the meaning of some of them. “This is helicopter
parenting at its most stultifying, a constant, hovering presence.” As we read this
sentence we find an unfamiliar word: stultifying. But using context clues, we can
determine that the word means something that causes the parenting style to be
negative, and can be related to the words hovering and helicopter. The dictionary
meaning for stultifying is to impair or make ineffective.
 4. Paraphrasing

Now that we have reviewed making inferences, I want all of us to practice

paraphrasing together. Just like making inferences by asking questions,
paraphrasing is a key strategy to understand a text.

Paraphrasing will allow us to write a summary of a text in your own words after
determining the central idea. Paraphrasing is to express the meaning of something
using different words.

Remember, always asking questions will allow us to better understand the central
idea of a text as well as making inferences or drawing conclusions about it.

Now, let's review some tips about paraphrasing:

1. Paraphrasing an article is not about what I think; it is about what the author
has communicated.
2. I have to remember not to include my opinion when paraphrasing information.
3. This is simply stating what I read in my own words so I can later take that
information and use it in a summary.

If we want to create a good summary, it is important to remember the following tips:

- A good summary…
- is accurate
- is complete
- uses YOUR voice, but not your own thoughts
- includes important facts and details
- has a logical order – sequential
- makes sense by itself.
 4. Practice

Let's do some practice exercises:

Read the following extract (first four paragraphs) with me. Then, let's try to
summarize it by paraphrasing.

“For those who think the NSA (DESCRIBIR QUE ES NSA) the worst invader of privacy,
I invite you to share an afternoon with Aiden and Foster, two 11-year-old boys, as
they wrap up a Friday at school. Aiden invites his friend home to hang out and they
text their parents, who agree to the plan.

As they ride on the bus Foster's phone and a sensor on a wristband alert the school
and his parents of a deviation from his normal route. The school has been notified
that he is heading to Aiden's house so the police are not called.

As they enter the house, the integrated home network recognises Aiden and pings
an advisory to his parents, both out at work, who receive the messages on phones
and tablets.

The system also sends Foster's data – physical description, address, relatives,
health indicators, social media profile - to Aiden's parents, who note he has a laptop.
Might the boys visit unsuitable sites? No, because Foster's parental rating access,
according to his profile, is limited to PG13, as is Aiden's.”

The first thing we need to do is go back and reread. So, I am going to skim over the
paragraphs again and think about what the author is trying to communicate.
I can tell the author is not in favor of the wristbands because of the first sentence.
He compares the wristbands to the NSA - not a good thing. The author then shares
a story about two boys who have the wristbands and how the wristband
communicates with the parents, the school, and possibly the police department. It
also regulates the boys' laptops.

So, if I have to paraphrase - put this in my own words - I am going to look at the
summary chart one more time and make sure I include the most important
information.

Now let's all take a look at this summary from the first 4 paragraphs using
paraphrasing. Remember to underline unknown words or phrases as you read the
four paragraphs independently.

If it is necessary, you can always rely on the use of a dictionary if you are not able to
determine the meaning of a word using context clues or other tools.

The author feels that child-tracking wristbands are a negative invention. The
wristbands are able to track the location of the boys as they travel from school to
home, send personal data to parents (including what his friend looks like and what
he has in his house), and check parental ratings of his friend’s laptop. The author
thinks all of the capabilities of the wristbands listed previously are an invasion of
privacy.

Observe how paraphrasing was just changing what the text says into our own words
based on facts, without formulating an opinion or thought.
 5. Conclusion

Thank you for listening to another English Lesson. notice how all the tools that we
have learned, start to build up to provide us with more knowledge.

In today's lecture, we were able to learn about identifying the central idea of a text,
making inferences, drawing conclusions, summarizing and using paraphrasing to
summarize. These are all useful strategies to understand any text we may
encounter.

Until next time!

References:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/10/child-tracking-wristbands-
dystopian-future-ces-2014
https://www.cpalms.org/