The active reader has a sense of the writer at work behind a text, and can explain something about how a text is constructed, based on plenty of prior reading experience.
Secure active readers are conscious of the writer at work and see the way language and organisational features are used to manipulate and create an effect on the reader. They are actively aware of the writer's craft and the way a point of view can be developed or promoted in a text, for example, through the use of rhetoric. They can recognise the way a writer chooses words and sentence structures to influence the reader. Readers at this level know that the writer and the narrator may not be one and the same and that texts are often constructed in order to put across a particular message or view of the world. In short, they are beginning to read with a writer's eye.
Through their encounters with more challenging texts, such as those including analysis, evaluation and comparison, they are well on their way to becoming more critical readers of fiction and non-fiction.
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