What are inferences and how do we develop them?

What are inferences and how do we develop them?

Inferences are your opinion, or your conclusion based on the information or evidence presented.

Inferences are not summaries. Instead of stating what is already written, inferences are about making meaning, or “reading in between the lines,” to find ideas, points, claims, connections, opinions and conclusions that may not have seemed so obvious.

When we make an inference, we use evidence to demonstrate how we arrived at our idea.

We will build our inferences into academic paragraphs. For now, read the paragraph below that comes from the Lecture Content post, and identify the inference or claim in the paragraph:

Bowens continues, “We have also been losing our connection to the land, our food, and our culture as each generation leaves the farm and rural towns for jobs in urban areas, and we become dependent on the industrialization of agriculture and corporatization of our food system” (4). Consider how, in the description of the novel, Queen Sugar, above, Charley Bordelon acknowledges, “I thought sugar grew on the baking aisle at the supermarket.” Then, Charley’s entire perspective changes when she returns home to Louisiana to help farm her father’s land. Bowens is making the claim that the disconnect between farming and food production can also cause a disconnect between food and culture. And Bowens finds this disconnect particularly critical to resist for Black people and People of Color in city settings, where the industrialization and corporatization of food is especially prevalent, where food access is often inequitable, and where land access becomes excessively expensive.

We will learn how to extract our main inference or claim in each paragraph, and move this line to the opening of our academic body paragraphs.

For now, which line did you identify as the inference?

The main inference in this paragraph is:

Bowens is making the claim that the disconnect between farming and food production can also cause a disconnect between food and culture. (Secondary inference: And Bowens finds this disconnect particularly critical to resist for Black people and People of Color in city settings, where the industrialization and corporatization of food is especially prevalent, where food access is often inequitable, and where land access becomes excessively expensive).

Based on the Bowens’ words, I have asserted my opinion about the meaning of her statements. I read her writing whereby she states that government imposed systems of industrialization and corporatization of food are particularly concentrated for communities of Color. I have asserted my inference that this kind of imposed disconnect between farming and food can also cause a disconnect between food and one’s culture. I would want to find additional evidence to validate my inference, but this is my inference based on my analysis of Bowens’ words.

For your upcoming Reader Response #2 Assignment, you will need to do your best work to develop an inference based on one of the readings assigned this week or next week.

Continue thinking about the concept of an inference, and where or when you’ve had to make inferences in your life. Here is a short, pixar film that can support our conceptualizing of inferences:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2PJ6T7U2eU&list=PL3L2MukeY2oQXRbgfse7b4fVWSgu7cccR (Links to an external site.)

Additionally, here is a video detailing the use of textual evidence when making inferences in writing. Please watch as this will give you more insight into the process of developing inferences.

Making Inferences (Links to an external site.)