C. Comprehension: Understanding and Responding to Texts · Reading Like a Critic: Understanding and Responding to Texts

Reading Drama and Making Local and Global Inferences

C3.2 C1.2About 70 minutes

Learning goals

I can read a script, using stage directions, dialogue and character lists to imagine a performance.
I can make local inferences about single lines and moments, using explicit and implicit evidence.
I can make global inferences about a whole text, such as its theme or a character's change.
I can support my interpretations with evidence and explain subtext and dramatic irony.

Words to know

script
The written text of a play, film or show, including dialogue and stage directions.

stage directions
Instructions in a script (often in italics and brackets) about setting, movement, tone, lighting and sound.

dialogue
The words characters speak to each other.

subtext
The unspoken meaning beneath the words: what a character really means or feels.

explicit evidence
Information stated directly in the text.

implicit evidence
Information suggested but not stated: actions, word choices, silences, details.

local inference
A conclusion about a specific line, detail or moment.

global inference
A conclusion about a whole text: its theme, message, or a character's overall change.

dramatic irony
When the audience knows something a character does not.

soliloquy
A speech in which a character, alone on stage, speaks thoughts aloud.

Remember from Grade 8

In Grade 8 you made local and global inferences in complex texts. In Grade 9 you'll do the same with drama, a form where inference is essential: there's usually no narrator to tell you what anyone feels. Everything comes through what characters say, what they don't say, and what they do.

Hook: "Fine."

How many ways can you say the word Fine? Try it out loud: happy, furious, exhausted, sarcastic, about to cry. In a play, a stage direction such as (slamming the cupboard) or (softly) changes the meaning completely. Reading drama means reading between the lines and around them.

How to read a script

Character list: names, ages and relationships give your first clues (Meera is 14 and has a tryout tomorrow: pressure!).
Opening stage directions: set the time, place and mood. 10 p.m. and too carefully suggest nerves.
Dialogue: the words. Ask what the character wants in each line.
Parentheticals: (lightly), (not looking up) show how a line is said, which often contradicts what is said.
Pauses and silences: in drama, silence is a line. Something important is happening.
Closing direction: Blackout ends the scene sharply, leaving an image in the audience's mind.

The parts of a script. Names in capitals show who speaks; italic words in brackets are stage directions that tell actors what to do and how. Readers have to imagine the performance from these clues.

Cut (a one-act scene written for this website)

CHARACTERS: MEERA, 14, trying out for a competitive hockey team tomorrow DEV, 17, her brother DAD, heard offstage

(A kitchen, 10 p.m. A hockey bag sits open on the floor. MEERA tapes a stick at the table, slowly and too carefully. DEV enters, opens the fridge, and stands looking into it without taking anything.)

DEV: You're taping it wrong.

MEERA: (not looking up) It's fine.

DEV: It'll be lumpy. You have to overlap it by half.

MEERA: Then it'll be lumpy. (She keeps taping.)

(Pause. DEV closes the fridge.)

DEV: Does Coach Bélanger still yell "Head up!" every two seconds?

MEERA: You'd know if you came to a game.

DEV: (lightly) I've been busy.

MEERA: Doing what? (Silence.) Sorry.

DEV: (picks up the roll of tape and turns it over in his hands) Two years ago, when I got cut, I told everyone I didn't care.

MEERA: I remember. You said it about forty times.

DEV: (almost smiling) Forty-one.

(He holds out his hand for the stick. MEERA hesitates, then gives it to him. He re-tapes it, quickly and neatly.)

DAD: (offstage) Lights out, you two!

DEV: (handing back the stick) Head up out there.

(MEERA looks at the stick, then at DEV. Blackout.)

Worked example

Let's make local inferences

Make inferences about three moments in Cut. Label each piece of evidence explicit or implicit.

Moment 1: DEV opens the fridge, and stands looking into it without taking anything. Implicit evidence: he's not hungry. Inference: he came in to talk but doesn't know how to start, so he's stalling.
Moment 2: MEERA: You'd know if you came to a game. Implicit: a sharp reply to a simple question. Inference: she's hurt that Dev stopped coming to her games.
Moment 3: DEV: Two years ago, when I got cut, I told everyone I didn't care. Explicit: he was cut and said he didn't care. MEERA: You said it about forty times. DEV: Forty-one. Implicit: saying it so often shows he did care. Inference: Dev is finally admitting how much being cut hurt, which explains why he stayed away from the rink.
Check: each inference = clue + what I know about people (people stall when they're nervous; people repeat denials when something hurts).

Dev is stalling because he wants to talk; Meera is hurt he stopped coming; Dev's joke Forty-one is a confession that being cut hurt. None of this is said outright; it's subtext.

Local inferences explain a single line or moment. A global inference is about the whole text, such as its theme or a character's change, and it should be supported by several local ones.

Worked example

Let's make a global inference

What is the theme of Cut, and how does Dev change? Support your interpretation with evidence from across the scene.

Beginning: Dev criticizes Meera's taping and jokes (I've been busy). He's keeping distance.
Turning point: Doing what? (Silence.) Sorry. The silence forces honesty. Dev then admits his disappointment.
End: he re-tapes the stick quickly and neatly, a skill he still has, and says Head up out there, repeating the coach's words as encouragement.
The title: Cut has a double meaning: Dev was cut from the team, and tape is cut for a stick. The thing that hurt him becomes a way to help.
Theme statement: Being honest about our disappointments can turn them into a way of supporting others.

Global inference: Dev moves from avoidance to support, and the scene suggests that honesty about disappointment allows connection. Evidence comes from the beginning, turning point, ending and title together.

Dramatic irony and the soliloquy

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (written in the 1590s; public domain), Act 2, Scene 2, Juliet stands on her balcony believing she is alone and speaks her thoughts:

What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.

Local inference: she means a name doesn't change what something truly is. Romeo would be just as wonderful if he weren't a Montague, the family her family hates.
Dramatic irony: the audience knows Romeo is below, listening. Juliet doesn't. We feel the tension and excitement she can't.
Global link: the whole play asks whether family loyalty and names should matter more than love and individual identity.

Just for fun

Funny-but-true: in many theatres, actors don't say "good luck" before a show; they say "break a leg." Theatre people can be so superstitious that wishing someone good luck is considered, well, bad luck.

Hands-on activity

Read it three ways

You need: one or two people at home, the script of Cut (above), a phone to record audio if a grown-up says it's okay (optional).

Read the scene aloud with a partner, following every stage direction.
Read it again, but change the parentheticals: make Dev say I've been busy angrily instead of lightly. How does the meaning change?
Read it a third time with longer silences at (Pause.) and (Silence.). Count to five in your head.
Write: Which reading made the subtext clearest? Which line changed meaning most when the tone changed?
Add one stage direction of your own somewhere in the scene, and explain what it would add.

What to look for: a clear comparison of the readings, a specific line whose meaning shifted, and an added stage direction that supports an inference (for example, (Dev glances at his old skates by the door) to show he still misses hockey).

Your turn

What do the opening stage directions suggest about Meera's mood? Give evidence.

Is Two years ago, when I got cut explicit or implicit evidence? What does it tell us?

What is the subtext of Dev's line I've been busy?

Why does Meera say Sorry after Doing what?

What does Head up out there mean, and why is it important that Dev says it?

Give a global inference about Dev's character change.

Explain the dramatic irony in Juliet's balcony speech.

More practice: warm-up

What are stage directions usually printed in?

What is subtext?

Who is DAD in the scene, and where is he?

What does Blackout mean?

Is a theme a local or a global inference?

More practice: on your own

Explain the double meaning of the title Cut.

Find a moment where what a character does contradicts what they say.

Why might the playwright have given Dad only one offstage line?

A classmate infers: Dev hates Meera. Evaluate this inference with evidence.

What does Juliet mean by That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet?

Challenge

Write a 6 to 8 line scene where a character says one thing but means another. Include at least two stage directions that reveal the subtext.

Compare how a short story and a play each reveal a character's feelings, using Cut and "The Best Project in the Gym" (Lesson 6) as examples.

Propose a global inference about what Cut says about family relationships, and identify one piece of evidence that complicates it.

Check your understanding

Quiz

In a script, (lightly) before a line is a...

Dev stands looking into [the fridge] without taking anything. The best local inference is that Dev...

Which is a global inference?

Dramatic irony happens when...

Implicit evidence is...

Why is inference especially important when reading drama?

For parents and teachers

What this lesson teaches: Grade 9 students make local and global inferences, using explicit and implicit evidence, to explain and support interpretations of complex texts (C3.2), with a focus on drama and its conventions as a text form (C1.2).

How to help at home:

Read Cut aloud together; take a part. Try different tones and talk about what changes.
While watching a show, pause and ask: "What does she mean, not what does she say?"
Ask your teen to back up any opinion about a character with two pieces of evidence.

Common difficulties:

Skipping stage directions. They're often where the subtext lives.
Over-inferring. An inference must be supported; ask "What's your evidence?"
Confusing local and global. A local inference explains one moment; a global one connects many moments.

Facts used: Romeo and Juliet was written by William Shakespeare in the 1590s and is in the public domain; Juliet's "What's in a name?" speech is in Act 2, Scene 2, while Romeo listens unseen. Actors' use of "break a leg" is a well-known theatre superstition. Cut was written for this website.