JUST WHAT IS…“CLOSE READING”

Keena Day, M.A. Sheffield High School

Professional Development Norms

• We will work together as a community

• We will operate in a collegial and friendly atmosphere, asking questions and making comments as necessary.

• We will be fully “present” at the session by becoming

familiar with materials, silencing our electronic devices, and by being attentive to behaviors that affect physical and mental engagement

“Every book has a skeleton hidden

between its covers. Your job

as an analytic reader is to find

it.”Adler and Van Doren, 1940/1972

“Every book has a skeleton hidden between

its covers. Your job as an analytic reader is to

find it.”

Close Reading Process

• First Level: Paraphrasing the Text on a sentence by sentence level:– State in your own words (and some of the

author’s) the meaning of each sentence as you read)

– You must preserve the author’s original intent and NOT change the meaning!

Paraphrase these quotes:“He who hesitates is lost.”“Money is the mother’s milk of politics”

Close Reading Process

• Second Level- Explicating– Explicate the Thesis of the paragraph

• State the main point of the paragraph in one or two sentences.

• Then elaborate on what you just paraphrased (“In other words…”)

• Give examples of the meaning by tying it to concrete situations in the real world. (For example….)

• Generate metaphors, analogies, pictures or diagrams of the basic thesis to connect it to other meanings you already understand

Close Reading Process

• Third Level: Analysis– Anytime you read, you are reading the product of

an author’s reasoning. You can use your understanding of the elements of reasoning, therefore, to bring your reading to a higher level.

– Do this by asking the following questions:

Close Reading Process

• What is the author’s fundamental purpose?• What is the author’s point of view with respect to

the issue?• What are the author’s most basic concepts?• What assumptions is the author making in his or

her reasoning?• What is the key question the author is trying to

answer?

Close Reading Process

• Fourth Level: Evaluation– We asses what we read by applying intellectual

standards to it, standards such as clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, significance, depth, breadth, logic, fairness:

Close Reading Process

• Does the author clearly state his or her meaning, or is the text vague, confused or muddled in some way?

• Is the author accurate in what he or she claims?• Is the author sufficiently precise in providing

details and specifics?• Does the author introduce irrelevant material,

thereby wandering from his/her purpose?

Close Reading Process

• Does the author take us into the important complexities inherent in the subject, or is the writing superficial?

• Does the author consider other relevant points of view, or is the writing overly narrow in its perspective?

• Is the text significant, or is the subject dealt with in a trivial manner?

• Does the author display fairness, or does the author take a one-sided, narrow approach?

GUIDE TO TEACHING CLOSE READING

Step 1: Teach Annotating Skills

• Annotating is like students having silent conversations with the text.

• As they read, students should engage the text by asking questions, commenting on meaning, marking events and passages, and identifying and more deeply appreciating the craft of the author and the tools the author employs to achieve any number of desired effects.

The Annotation Process

1. Teach abbreviations (b/c, w/, w/o, etc.)2. Teach students methods of annotating:• Circling or boxing unfamiliar words• Underlining key words, phrases or sentences• Bracketing main ideas• Jotting notes in the margin (understandings, questions,

inferences, observations)• Drawing arrows to ideas that connect• Using an asterisk to identify a particular recurring

element or rhetorical strategies noticed

The Annotation Process

• Teach students to automatically converse with the text:– Make comments about author’s purpose,

characters, events, etc.– Make connections– Questioning– Inferences, connections, predictions they make

The Common Core asks student to be able to cite and refer to the text. One simple way to do this is by numbering each paragraph, section or stanza in the left hand margin. When students refer to the text, require them to state which paragraph they are referring to. The rest of the class will be able to quickly find the line being referred to.

Number the paragraphs

When faced with a full page of text, reading it can quickly become overwhelming for students. Breaking up the text into smaller sections (or chunks) makes the page much more manageable for students.

Chunk the text

At the beginning of the year, group the paragraphs into chunks before you hand out the assignment.

You look at the paragraphs to see where natural chunks occur.

It is important to understand that there is no right or wrong way to chunk the text, as long as you can justify why you grouped certain paragraphs together. By the end of the year, you let go of that

responsibility and ask your students to chunk the text on their own.

They number the paragraphs then must make decisions about what paragraphs will be grouped together.

Middle School and Exceptional Children Annotation Modification

Marking the Text is an easy skill to teach younger students or students who struggle reading. It gives them markings to use with text:? Questions# for comments! For things they agree with* For unfamiliar wordscheck mark for literary devices they seeLOL for something that makes you lol for something good or favorable for something sad or something they don’t agree with

Give Students a Guide

http://teacher.depaul.edu/html/Guide_Assess_Nonfiction.html

Getting Started with Close Reading

Start with Shorter Passages

• For students who have never really read for information, shorter passages help students practice without becoming overwhelmed.

• These passages can be excerpts from texts with 2-5 very specific text dependent questions.

(See Cold Mountain) explication

•Explain the contrast between paragraph 1 and 2. What affect does this contrast have on the passage?

•After reading lines 1-5, it is obvious Inman has sympathy for the three-legged dog. Upon reading the second paragraph, what’s the irony of his following actions?

•How does the author use diction to relate the sudden change in emotion?

•Who is the good guy? Who is the bad guy? How do you know?

Close Reading Procedures

• Number Paragraphs• Chunk Text• Allow students to read silently and annotate• Allow students to reread by listening to teacher or

audio read the text aloud• Allow students time to critically reflect on what they

read• Create text dependent questions about the text• Create opportunities for discussion and writing

INVESTIGATIVE READING:- “ORDEAL BY CHEQUE”- SOLVING MYSTERIESTWO MINUTE MYSTERIES (DAVID SOBOL, 6-8)FIVE MINUTE MYSTERIES(9-12)- WILL SHORT’S BRAIN BUSTERS

Silent Seminar

• Take quotes, pictures from text• Post the quote in the center of butcher paper or sticky

poster paper (I usually have 5 of these with different quotes/pictures)

• Leave space where students can make comments• Students can only communicate through writing.

Students cannot talk to each other• If they see a comment they disagree or agree with, they

can make comments directly by drawing an arrow to the comment they want to respond to

Kylene Beers and Robert Probst

Save the Last Word for Me

• After completing a close reading, have students select a quote they liked or didn’t like from text (or you can get really descriptive if it is a speech or non-fiction and have them identify rhetorical devices or something that was memorable to them) and write it on an index card and a response to it on the back

• In a circle, each student read his/her quote out loud. Everyone else in the circle comments first and the person who gave the quote goes last

Kylene Beers

Socratic Seminar

• By far, the most difficult strategy, but the most fulfilling. Once kids get a hang of close reading, Socratic Seminar is the best way for them to show off what they know.

• I generally choose a piece of text (mostly articles, speeches, editorials) and give kids 24 hours to read and annotate.

• If you really want to make things spicy in the classroom, pick something controversial!

Socratic Seminar

• The Seminar itself can be used as an assessment for you to see who understood what they read.

• All students are given a rubric so they can see what is expected of them.

• I give classroom norms (one at a time, rule of 3, eye contact, posture, diction, voice level), but everyone must speak

• I keep track of who says what on my own master copy, then give students ratings of their work

• Once every 9 weeks, we have an “Act Like an Intellect Day” (to promote vocabulary use)

Sample Socratic Seminar

Directions: Close Reading

#1 Number paragraphs#2 Chunk the Text (we will complete #s 1-9)#3 Read Independently and Annotate#4 Listen to the Excerpt (teacher reads aloud)#5 Write a critical reflection (thoughts about the

text, parts you agree with, disagree with, question)

Favorites and Resources• Excerpts and Texts I LOVE!

– 6th grade “Eleven” Ciseneros– 8th grade “Runagate, Rungate” Hayden– 9th grade “I Have a Dream”, “The Cat Bill”, “Letter from Birmingham

Jail”, “A Summer Tragedy”– 10th grade “Second Inaugural (Lincoln)”, “Why I Want a Wife”– 11th grade JFK Inaugural, “Proposal to Abolish Grading”

• Resources:• Read-Aloud Anthology by Janet Allen (Grades 6 and up)• The Read Aloud Handbook and Read Aloud Anthology by Jim Trelease (7-12)• The New Yorker Magazine (9-12)• Scholastic.com: Comprehension Skills: 40 Short Passages for Close Reading

Grades 1-6• Articles, historical documents, photographs, charts, graphs, EOC/ACT

passages

When You Know Close Reading is Successful

http://portal.sliderocket.com/DHLSV/Whisper-of-Aids-