1. Referents such as ‘he, it, they, one, the other, them, her‘ are important in reading (and writing). These are words that refer to something or someone mentioned previously.
2. Look at this extract from The Cook (Chapter 5) and find the referents. Decide what the referents refer to.
She looked at her own hand. In it was the heavy knife for cutting vegetables. It shone in the sunlight. She looked at the two boys. One had short, blonde hair and a grin on his face. The other was tall with ginger hair and glasses. She watched a trickle of blood run down the tall boy’s nose and drip onto the ground. No one moved or said a word. Then a door slammed and someone came out the staffroom.
3. Choose suitable referents for these sentences where the word is underlined
i. Candy slept on a bench in a park. Candy wasn’t very comfortable, but Candy slept for a little while.
ii. Candy tried to open the kitchen door, but the kitchen door was closed.
iii. Candy asked the cleaning staff to let her in, and the cleaning staff unlocked the door.
iv. Candy went to see the headmistress in her office, but the headmistress wasn’t in her office.
v. Candy gave Collins a handkerchief. Collins used a handkerchief to wipe Collins’s face.
EFLshorts 