Schema theory
A cognitive framework explaining how readers use mental schemas (structured knowledge of concepts, situations, and patterns) to interpret texts, connecting textual information to prior experience and cultural knowledge.
Real World
When viewers first saw the trailer for 'Get Out' (2017), their horror schema triggered immediate unease — the isolated house, the polite-but-unsettling family, the Black protagonist — because they recognised the genre's conventions before a single threat appeared.
Exam Focus
Name the specific schema activated and explain whether the text confirms, subverts, or complicates it to access higher marks.
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