Inferences and Foreshadowing

1. Inferences and Foreshadowing

2. Inferences Definition: The act or process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true. Hint: I tend to use this term a lot, so make sure you understand it! • This is an action that you, the reader, must take on your own in order to understand things that may not be clearly revealed in the text.

3. For Example…. • Christopher is a logical thinker • Christopher does not understand other peoples emotions • Christopher prefers a daily structure • Christopher does not like change Therefore, we can infer that Christopher may not be like the average person. Further analysis of his character then leads us to infer he is on the autism spectrum.

4. Foreshadowing Definition: The use of words/phrases and hints that set the stage for a story to unfold and give the reader a hint of something that is going to happen without revealing the story or spoiling the suspense. Purpose: to suggest an upcoming outcome to the story.

5. For Example…. • The author has Christopher tell us that he likes dogs more than people near the beginning of the book. • Christopher is closest to his pet rat throughout the book, so we can infer that he better relates to animals rather than people. • His rat, Toby, dies near the end of the story. All of these things foreshadow that his father will buy him a dog as an attempt to get through to Christopher and earn back his trust at the end of the story.