Structure
Designing a three level guide can help you think about and respond to important ideas in your text. A three level guide includes three different sorts of statements based on the text you have read:
Level One (reading for literal meanings):
reading the lines to work out facts and details. The level one focus is on information in the text.
Level Two (reading for interpretative meanings):
reading between the lines to interpret what the writer is saying.
Level Three (reading for applied meanings):
reading beyond the lines and commenting on ideas or issues that the text challenges you to think about, or what the text has taught or shown you. This is the area you will focus on most. It is one of these ideas that you will write about later in this activity.
Responding to a three level guide
Read Patricia Grace's short story Beans then in pairs talk about the abbreviated three level guide based on Beans that follows. The first statement at each level is annotated to provide some ideas on how you might respond to the other statements.
Talking about Beans
In pairs, talk about these statements. The first underlined statement at each level is annotated in italics to give you some ideas on how you could talk about the other statements. Spend the most time talking about the level three statements:
Level One Statements: [literal meanings]
Decide if each of these statements is accurate. Find evidence in the story to support your view.
Every Saturday the boy bikes into town to play soccer.
Sample response:
This statement is not completely accurate. He bikes into town, but he plays rugby not soccer.
The boy loves to get dirty during the game.
The neighbour says that the boy is “full of beans.”
Level Two Statements: [interpreting what the writer is saying]
Decide if each of these statements is accurate. Find evidence in the story to support your view.
The boy is enthusiastic about everything he does.
Sample response:
This statement is accurate. He aims to enjoy everything he does, even biking home from town and smelling the “big stink of pigs” which he thinks is “really great.” Even the neighbour recognises how enthusiastic the boy is when she says that he is “full of beans
The story is called Beans because the boy loves looking at vegetables.
The boy appreciates living in the country.
Level Three Statements: [commenting on ideas that go ‘beyond the text’:]
Based on your understanding of the story, explain what the text has challenged you to think about, or taught or shown you. Find evidence in the story to support your view.
Attitude is everything!
Sample response:
I agree with this statement. Like the boy in this story, having a positive attitude makes a difference to how I feel about what is happening around me. The boy could have taken a negative attitude to everything he did. He could have hated biking into town, hated getting dirty in the game, hated the hot [or cold] showers, hated biking up the hill and the smell of the pigs on the way home, and so on. Instead, he took a positive attitude to everything. He even ate lemons because he didn’t “want to miss a thing in all my life.”
You should live for the moment.
Always give things your best shot.
Typical boy!
Developing a short three level guide for your text
Use the template below to develop a three level guide for your extended text that includes at least two statements at each level. Base the statements you develop on the responses (See resource B)
You should give the most attention to developing Level Three statements. One of your Level Three statements will be the basis of your writing later in this unit.
Three Level Guide Template
Your extended text title:
Author:
Develop at least two statements at each level:
Level One Statements: [literal meanings]
Level Two Statements: [interpreting what the writer is saying]
Level Three Statements: [commenting on ideas that go ‘beyond the text’: ideas the text has challenged you to think about, or what the text has taught or shown you:]
For further reading on Level 3 Guides, go to:
Published on: 25 Nov 2010
