The Dominant Impression
Every
once in awhile you meet a new person at a party or at
work, and you get a strong impression of his or her personality. Something comes across to you and is powerful
enough to stay with you for a long time. You have such as strong sense of what that person is like that you
decide right on the spot whether or not you’d like to
know him or her better. There’s even a kind of folk wisdom
that says first impression are lasting impressions.
That’s one reason for being very particular about
your dress, behavior and attitude when you’re interviewing
at a college or for a new job.
The impression you give at a first meeting is
critical.
The same kind of thing happens when you’re reading. This main effect that the writer wishes to leave with you is called
the dominant impression. The
word dominant comes from the Latin word dominant- which means “ruling or governing.” If something is dominating, it is overpowering
or influential. When
you think about it then, it makes sense that a dominant
impression is the overpowering idea that the author wants
you to take away from the reading.
  
Let’s
consider the following passage taken from Don’t Let’s go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller.
In this account of growing up in Rhodesia, Africa,
later to become Zimbabwe, Bobo, as she is known by her
family, describes her earliest experiences in “school.” As you read, think about what dominant impression Fuller is trying
to get across about her early school experience.
One strategy is to ask yourself:
“What is the one single idea that the author is
trying to get across in this passage?”
(In this passage, Vanessa is Bobo's older sister. Cloud
is the name of a servant in Bobo's household. Her "school"
is at home and her "Mum" is the teacher.
Vanessa goes away to school when I am four. Packets come for me from the Correspondence School in Salisbury.
Cloud makes me a small chair and table at the
woodwork shop and paints them blue and the table sits
next to Dad’s desk on the veranda.
In the morning, after breakfast, I sit down with
Mum and the wad of papers from Salisbury and I write
my “Story of the Day” and I learn to color, count, paint.
Once a week after lunch, Mum turns on the radio
and we listen to School on the Air and I throw beanbags
round the sitting room and pronounce (“Say after me”)
the colors of the rainbow and the names of the shapes,
and I walk like a giant and (“Now, then, very softly”)
like a fairy and Mum lies on the sofa and reads her book.
If
we were to answer the question What is the one single
idea that the author is trying to get across in this
passage? we would probably say something along the
lines of how alone Bobo was when she was a child.
While many of us may have been shy and a little
scared to start school, almost all of us were with other
children. Bobo, however, is the only student in her "school."
We can understand more about how this dominant
impression gets created when we look at the details.
Details: how they add up
The
information in a description might appear to be random,
but it isn’t. The
writer zooms in with details that help you “see” in your
mind’s eye what is being described. This focus results
in a main effect or the dominant impression. Every detail helps to make the dominant impression
keener and sharper.
By
paying attention to details, you can create a clearer
picture in your head.
Let’
go back to Fuller’s description of school. The details of her experience are noted in
blue and build one upon the next to create the isolated
setting where Bobo went to school.
Look at these details and how she has ordered
them:
Vanessa goes away to school when I am four. Packets come for me
from the Correspondence School in Salisbury. Cloud makes me a small
chair and table at the woodwork shop and paints
them blue and the table sits next to Dad’s desk on the veranda. In the morning, after breakfast, I sit down with Mum and the wad of papers from Salisbury
and I write my “Story of the
Day” and I learn to color, count, paint.
Once a week after lunch, Mum turns on the radio and we listen
to School on the Air and I
throw beanbags around the sitting room and pronounce
(“Say after me”) the colors of the rainbow and the names
of the shapes, and I walk like a giant and (“Now, then,
very softly”) like a fairy and Mum
lies on the sofa and reads her book.
Without
knowing any more about the situation, you can tell that
this writer’s memory of “school” involves her being the
only student. The details of time give us a sense of
what her day was like as well as her remote location.
She is, in fact, on a ranch in Zimbabwe. Because their farm is so far out in the country,
her sister Vanessa has gone to live at school, but BoBo
isn’t old enough yet to do that.
Paying
Attention: Visualizing
to remember
Remember
when you were BoBo’s age—back in kindergarten or first
grade—that the books you “read” were mostly filled with
pictures, not words? Those pictures helped the words on the page
to come alive, giving the text meaning.
Now, of course, most of what you read is only
in words, but it is still important to try to “see” or
imagine what you’re reading. Because we’re very visual beings, we tend to
remember ideas better if we can picture them in our minds.
The same is true for descriptions that we read.
But just how do you picture what you read? There are several things to keep in mind. First,
in order to pay attention when you read, you must shut
out other distractions. Often to concentrate, you have to pick a quiet
spot where there is no radio or television blaring in
the background if you’re going to be able to focus in
on the text and follow the action.
Once
you’re able to get focused, you must pay attention to
the details.
For example, were you paying attention to how a special
table and chair has been made for Bobo, that packets
with activities have come from Salisbury, and that she
listens to “School on the Air?” These details help us to realize that Bobo is
living in an isolated area where there aren’t other children. The details about the kinds of activities Bobo
is doing—counting, coloring, painting—are activities
that children commonly do
in kindergarten.
Now,
you must pay attention to the actions. What does it mean to follow the action when
you’re reading? It
means you picture in your mind who is doing what and
how they are doing it. You allow the actions to unfold before you.
Ask yourself: Who is
doing what, and how?
Then imagine the person described actually performing
those actions in the way the text describes.
(If there is no specific “who,” picture yourself
in the role.) It
takes more energy to read this way, but expending that
energy helps you to understand and remember what you
read. That’s
what active reading is all about!
Let’s
take a look at another school experience of Bobo’s.
Pay particular attention to the action in this
passage. Imagine yourself in Bobo’s situation having
to behave in the way that she is expected to behave in
order to attend Arundel High School.
Watch for examples of how her school and her sister,
Vanessa's school are different. Think about what overall
impression you get from the description. As you read,
you’ll notice notations in the margins to the left and
right of the passage. These are the thoughts of one reader
as she paid attention to the details and imagined the
action. If you were reading this passage on the printed
page, there would be margins, or sections of white space
between the edge of the page and the text. We have highlighted
these margins in yellow.
Margins
provide you a visual edge to the printed line, and they
also give you a place to pause and make mental notes
before moving on to the next line. Good readers often
use this space to write notes and questions about what
they are thinking as they read. In this way, they can
have a “conversation” with the ideas set forth in the
passage. In this passage, we have included notes in the
right margins to help you see how you might use the margins
to make notes as you read.
| At
our school, we cannot make or receive phone
calls except at ten o’clock on Saturday morning,
when our conversations are monitored by a matron
and we may speak for only five minutes.
Our letters out of the school are frequently
censored.
Our letters into the school are subject
to censorship at any time. We may receive only visitors who are approved
by the authorities and who appear on a master
list, and those only between the hours of three
and five on Sunday afternoons. We must attend chapel twice a day. Grace before meals is expressed in Latin. |
Censorship:
that's when someone controls or restricts
what you write or say.
She
cannot have visitors or phone calls without
permission. |
| We
must wear uniforms no longer than an inch below
the knee, no shorter than an inch above the
knee as measured from a kneeling position;
we are required to wear a uniform of some description
(there is a school uniform, a Sunday uniform,
and an activities uniform) for all but a few
hours a day when, between bath time and lights-out,
we are (in any case) shut up in a classroom
attending to homework. We must tie up our hair when it touches our collars. We must wear high-waisted, low-legged thick
brown nylon underwear.
We may not speak after lights-out, or
before the wake-up bell, which rings at six.
We must wait at the door for our seniors,
teachers, visitors. |
She
must dress according to strict rules.
Can
you picture how her uniform might look
and how she has to wear her hair?
She
doesn't get to make many choices during
her day. |
If
you read this and pictured yourself in Bobo’s place,
you’re much more likely to remember the description of
the school, a place where there are many rules and students
are expected to follow them. By visualizing, you
make an “action movie,” so to speak, of the text, and
that makes it come alive.
Assignment 1.1 Description and Dominant Impression
After
reading the first section of this module carefully, answer
the questions below. Be sure to ask your teacher if you
have any questions.
1. What is a description?
2.
What does it mean to "visualize" when you're
reading?
3.
What are two differences between Vanessa and Bobo's schools
that you can find in the first paragraph of the reading?
4.
What is the dominant impression that you get of Bobo's
school? Would you like to go there? Why or why not.
5.
List 4 or 5 descriptive details that help create this
picture you have of the school.
6.
How can you use margins as you read?
Save
your work and send this assignment to your teacher. On
the subject line, write Assignment 1.1 Description
and Dominant Impression.
|
