Projecting him or herself into the scenario develops the skill of measuring the distance between the narrator and the story. The chapter also sensitizes students to the difference between point of view and opinion. Finally, the chapter prepares students for examining how the kinds and uses of point of view interact with the other literary tools that an author employs, and thus, for writing essays about the way they work in one story or across several. Studying point of view prepares a reader to listen more carefully to the narrative voice, discern its characteristics and act on the implications. It's not enough to say that the writer uses the first person, second person, or dramatic, omniscient, or limited omniscient.
All storytellers use one or the other.
The interactive reader's job is to ask why an author chooses that particular point of view. The answer reveals information which contributes to an essay when that reader turns into a writer. The skills in this chapter place the student in a position, for example, to consider the possibility that there is more than one narrative voice in, let's say, Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quijote. It's easier to accept the idea of multiple voices in Cervantes' masterpiece when one considers the sad political, economic, and spiritual condition of his Spain. Cervantes wrote for people whom he thinks just won't get it.