ShmoopTube

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[Coop and Dino singing]

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Reading is like learning to play an instrument – the only way to get better is with practice. [Man reading and man playing drums]

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Reading is also not like learning to play an instrument in that it doesn’t drive your

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entire family crazy, which is always nice. [Boy playing instrument and parents clutching their ears]

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But even the most experienced readers – the ones who spend half their lives in the library

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– sometimes come across passages that are straight up confusing. [Old man picks up book and looks confused]

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And that's okay!

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When this happens, it can be useful to visualize the text.

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Take this somewhat confusing passage here:

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“The kitchen floor's banana peel on which the chef did slip was ultimately the cause

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of the pot of soup's topsy-turvy demise.”

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Huh?? What??

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Okay so, yeah, the author of this text could be a little more clear… but let’s work [Dino appears with a thesaurus]

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with what we’ve got The first step in visualizing this text is

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to make sure you've got a handle on all the words involved.

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If there are any words we aren't too familiar with, like, topsy-turvy, we can look them [Topsy-turvy in a dictionary]

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up in the dictionary.

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In this case, topsy-turvy means “upside-down” or “all over the place.”

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Now we do the same for any other words we’re not best friends with.

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So if we’re a little unfamiliar with “demise,” we can look it up and see that it means “death”

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or “end.”

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Huh.

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So maybe this won't be the happiest sentence in the world… [Sentence cries]

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Once we've figured out all the words we weren't too sure about, the next step is to look for

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any action. [Man punches a man in the face]

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Is anything happening in the text?

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In this case, the main action appears to be someone slipping on a banana peel. [Man slips on banana peel]

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Now that's something we can visualize!

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Heck, we've seen that happen in tons of movies!

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Now that we have the action, we should focus on the setting.

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Where is this taking place? [A desert and beach setting]

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If we know the setting, it’s way easier to visualize the scene.

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In this case, the passage says we're in a kitchen, so in that goes. [Boy lying on kitchen floor]

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Next, we ask ourselves who the people involved are.

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What do they look like?

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In this case, it's clearly a chef doing the slipping.

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Now we're really getting somewhere. [Boy dressed as chef on the floor]

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Now we need to go through and fill in any other blanks with whatever information we

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might still have left.

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So far, we have the chef in the kitchen slipping on the banana peel.

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But what about the last bit?

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“The pot of soup's topsy-turvy demise.”

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Well, since we know that topsy-turvy means upside-down and all over the place and we [Soup moves upside down]

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know that demise means “death” or “end,” then we know that we're visualizing the messy

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and upside-down end of a fresh pot of soup. [Soup splats over kitchen]

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A tragic scene, but definitely one we can visualize.

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So the next time you come across a difficult passage, just play it in your head like a

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movie, and you'll have it figured out in no time. [Chef slips and soup splatters all over the kitchen]

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And you’ll have a head start on your career as a film director.

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Watch out, Spielberg…

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