Reading Strategy: Visualize

When you read a play, try to visualize the characters and action. Use the actors’ dialogue and stage directions—the instructions about how to act and what the stage looks like—to form mental images of the story.

Reading Strategy Visualize
    How to Form Mental Images

  • 1. Look for words in the dialogue and stage directions that describe the characters, their actions, and events.

  • 2. Focus on words that describe. Use them to form mental images.

  • 3. Draw pictures to show what is happening. You may want to draw quick sketches the second time you read the play to help make the scenes clear in your mind.

Strategy in Action

Here’s how one student formed mental images of a play.

Look Into the Text

SCENE ONE

MS. ROSARIO is pacing nervously in her office. It is 9:00 a.m.

Stage directions tell the actor what to do.

I picture a woman walking back and forth near her desk. She looks worried.

MS. ROSARIO. [desperate] I need a mascot for our Monster Sale. The broadcast starts in two hours! There must be at least one monster that needs a job!

The character’s name tells who is speaking.

[MISS PETAL enters. She looks terrified.]

Sometimes the stage directions are in brackets.

Practice Together

Reread the passage above and form mental images of the characters and action. Follow the steps in the How-To box.