The document outlines the SOAPSTONE method, a strategy for active reading that encourages readers to engage with the text through questioning, annotating, and summarizing. It details the various components of SOAPSTONE, including Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, and Tone, and how to analyze each to better understand the text's meaning. Active reading techniques are emphasized to facilitate deeper comprehension and interaction with the material.

1. SOAPSTone
A method to Analyze Documents

2. Active Reading
To be an “active reader” you interact with the text.
• to have a “conversation” with the text
• the text provides answers AND questions
• you annotate or “mark up” the text

3. Active Reading
Questioning the text
• Before reading the text itself, the title and topic is likely to elicit questions.
Write down any questions you want the text to answer
• As you read, write down any new questions that the text create in you mind,
if the text answers them write those down too, if the text does not answer
them, use the tools and resources at your disposal to answer them

4. Active Reading
• Underline important terms.
• Circle definitions and meanings.
• Write key words and definitions in
the margin.
• Signal where important information
can be found with key words or
symbols in the margin.
• Write short summaries in the
margin at the end of sub-units.
• Write the questions in the margin
next to the section where the
answer is found.
• Indicate steps in a process by using
numbers in the margin.
Marking up the text

5. What IS SOAPSTone?
S peaker
O ccasion
A udience
P urpose
S ubject
Tone

6. Speaker
The voice that tells the story.
• The author and the speaker are NOT necessarily the same. An author may
choose to tell the story from any number of different points of view. Is
someone identified as the speaker? What assumptions can be made about the
speaker? What age, gender, class, emotional state, education, or…? In
nonfiction, how does the speaker’s background shape his/her point of view?

7. Occasion
The time and place of the piece; the context that encouraged the writing
to happen.
• Is it a memory, a description, an observation, a valedictory, a diatribe, an
elegy, a declaration, a critique, a journal entry or…? Writing does not occur
in a vacuum. There is the larger occasion: an environment of ideas and
emotions that swirl around a broad issue. Then there is the immediate
occasion: an event or situation that catches the writer’s attention and triggers
a response.

8. Audience
The (group) of readers to whom this piece is directed.
• The audience may be one person, a small group, or a large group; it may be a
certain person or a certain people. Does the speaker identify an audience?
What assumptions exist about the intended audience?

9. Purpose
Why was this text written? (The reason behind the text).
• You should ask yourself, “What does the speaker want the audience to think
or do as a result of reading this text?” How is this message conveyed? What
is the message? How does the speaker try to spark a reaction in the audience?
What techniques are used to achieve a purpose? How does the text make the
audience feel? What is its intended effect? Consider the purpose of the text
in order to examine the argument and its logic.

10. Subject
The general topic, content, and ideas contained in the text.
• You should be able to state the subject in a few words or a phrase. How do
you know this? How does the author present the subject? Is it introduced
immediately or delayed? Is the subject hidden? Is there more than one
subject?

11. Tone
The attitude of the author.
• The spoken word can convey the speaker’s attitude, and, thus, help to impart
meaning, through tone of voice. With the written work, it is tone that
extends meaning beyond the literal. If the author were to read aloud the
passage, describe the likely tone of that voice. It is whatever clarifies the
author’s attitude toward the subject. What emotional sense pervades the
piece? How does the diction point to tone? How do the author’s diction,
imagery, language, and sentence structure (syntax) convey his or her feelings?