本文探讨小说阅读教学中的核心问题，即如何使学生看到阅读小说的意义，阅读的动力，进而操练分析小说的基本方法。文章指出，自18世纪以来，小说成为日常或私人情感最主要的载体，是小说通过虚构人物首先指出言行与情感的分离，以及叙述声音与人物内心的不对等，考察情感与叙事语言形式的关系应该成为小说阅读的主要目标。实现这个目标有几条基本思路，包括本文提到的关键词梳理、句式分析和叙事视角及结构分析等手段。 接触长篇小说的时候，学生可以先读一到两章，教师以此为基础演示几种阅读方法，学生领会后再在自己接下来的阅读中实践。实际教学经验证明，用这个程序学生的阅读兴趣和能力都有显著提高。

This essay discusses effective ways of training students, on both undergraduate and graduate levels, in reading fiction in English. The professor needs to have in mind two major goals, namely sustaining students’ interest in reading and helping them delve into the underlying meanings of fiction as embedded in narrative and linguistic forms. Like all other readers, students are naturally drawn to the depictions and suggestions of sophisticated sentiments in the modern novel, which since at least the 18^th century has become the central arena of psychic drama in Western culture. But they need guidance on how to decipher the implications of recurrent imagery, syntactical variation, and shifts in narrative perspectives and structures---all effective ways of getting beneath the surface of fictional writings. Pedagogical practice has proved that, when instructors demonstrate their own techniques of readings with clarity, a majority of students are capable of making remarkable progress in fiction reading.