Close Reading Strategies | Close Reading Strategies on Test

Close reading is a rigorous literary investigation, text interrogation, and or a critical analysis of a complex passage or demanding literary work, with the stated goal of gleaning the true meaning of an authors words. Students need repeated concrete practice in the art of owning a text, they must filter and rank text, hunting for salient points, obscure points, and hidden ideas. Students need to be trained to see the patterns (structure, style, conventions) used by writers, the clues they leave behind that are common to the writer's craft. Close reading strategies must be practiced and honed in order for students to develop better critical and analytical thinking. Close reading is not an innate skill, it must be rehearsed, practiced, and mastered. The goal of close reading is a cogent comprehension, a clear understanding of the author's explicit and implicit meanings. 

Common Core State Standards require close reading activities and lessons. 

Close reading anticipatory set: Systematic Skimming or Pre-reading is an analytical "investigational reading strategy" reading activity that should be used at the beginning of a close reading lesson. The strategy effectively engages students' attention, builds background knowledge, and helps students develop essential questions that will deepen their understanding and comprehension. When students learn, use, and develop concrete reading strategies that help them fin the pertinent information "main idea" and not on extraneous detail (intentional distractors are used in many reading assessments) they start comprehending what the author truly intended. 

Essential Question: How do we help students develop close reading strategies that give them the tools to understand an author's message and ideas at the deepest levels?

Close Reading should always start with questions in mind.

My Favorite Close Reading Strategies: I Teach my Students to use these Strategies for End of Year Reading Assessments.


1) Skim the article or articles to get a quick gist of the essential ideas. What is the main idea and or topics? Read the directions, read the title or titles of each passage, read the first and last sentence of each passage, read any prompts and or all questions

2) Read the introductory paragraph and the last paragraph in each passage “the conclusion” What is the author's purpose?

3) Systematic analysis: Look for similar ideas or themes in the first and last paragraphs (authors usually introduce the main idea in the introductory paragraphs or they will summarize the main idea in the conclusion) – look for important terms, key ideas, read a few interior passages if you are not seeing the big ideas introduces in the first or last paragraph

4) Generate an essential question! Create a hypothesis, theses, or a set of essential questions based on your pre-reading and skimming: What is the main idea, theme or message the authors are writing about, deliberately looking for signs of the main ideas or arguments! Inspectional reading, looking especially for a summary sentences or conclusions at the begging and end of the passages.

5) Read the entire text top to bottom reevaluate your hypothesis, theses, and or you essential question

6) Read the text again with your questions in mind: Annotate the text that supports you theses, take notes in the margins, highlight keywords, and ask questions that you would ask the author, summarize ideas, and or classify what type of writing you are analyzing

7) Create a dialectic argument “summarize” using text evidence that supports your original hypothesis, theses, or essential questions

Extensions:

8) Socratic Ranking Survey: Rank the paragraphs or sentences based importance "rank" using an analysis of “Philosophical. Historical, Scientific, or Academic Ideas”. Look for important philosophical topics in preparation for a Socratic seminar

[PDF]A Close Look at Close Reading (PDF)
Close reading is thoughtful, critical analysis of a text that focuses on significant details or patterns in order to develop a deep, precise understanding of the text's form, craft, meanings, etc. It is a key requirement of the Common Core State Standards and directs the reader's attention to the text itself.

[PDF]Close Reading, Vocabulary, and Text Dependent Questions
Strategies for Close Reading. • Story Mapping. • SOAPS. • Text Connections. • Three Levels of Questions. • Arguments & Evidence. • Appeals-Logical, Ethical, Emotional. • Assumptions ...

[PDF]CLOSE AND CRITICAL READING
Students will quickly discover that the author makes multiple claims throughout the argument. When studying poetry, students could underline the imagery they find throughout the poem. Circling specific items is also an effective close reading strategy. Have students circle “Key terms” in the text. Key terms: 1. Are defined. 2.

[PDF]Steps for Close Reading
1. Number the paragraphs. 2. Chunk the text. 3. Read with a pencil. 4. Summarize in the left margin. 5. Dig deeper, draw pictures, and ask questions in the right margin. Steps for Close Reading. 1, 2, 3…

[PDF]Five close reading strategies
Five close reading strategies. (Adapted from an original blog post by Court Allam). I walked in to my first college class, Political Science 101, eager to learn. For my inaugural college assignment, my professor asked the class to read the first three chapters of the textbook for the next class period. That night, I returned to my ...

[PDF]SUppORTING STUDENTS IN CLOSE READING - Center on ...
plan lessons that include increased instructional time working with text and engaging students in close reading of content-area texts. ..... key words, types of sentence structures, visual components, and text cohesion strategies.7. Note the reasons ...... http://ell.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/ela_pdf/ELA%20Lesson%202.pdf.

[PDF]A Close Reading Strategy
A Close Reading Strategy. 1 . Introduction. Provide some context (background) for the text. The instructor reads the text aloud. The students read the text independently. 2. Number the paragraphs. Number each paragraph in the left hand margin. This will help locate information. 3. Chunk: 1—31415-617-8. Chunking breaks ...

[PDF]Close Reading.pdf
Close reading is a writing strategy meant to help you gain a better understanding of your reading of a text and to provide you will the necessary textual evidence to support that reading.

[PDF]Close Reading versus Reading Comprehension Strategies
 CLOSE READING. READING COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES. WHAT IS IT? An outcome; “what the kids do.” Results in deeper analysis and interpretation. A set of techniques for figuring out text.

[PDF]Close Reading Strategy - The Syracuse City School District
Close Reading Strategy Tool Kit. Basic statements or questions of a close read includes: ∙ Let's look closer at this section of the text. / Let's investigate this part further. /. ∙ According to the text, ___/ Let's use evidence from the text to .. /. ∙ Let's see how the author… / Because we want learn how to write like the author __.About 7,250,000 results (0.47 seconds)

[PDF]A Close Look at Close Reading (PDF)
What Is Close Reading? Close reading is thoughtful, critical analysis of a text that focuses on significant details or patterns in order to develop a deep, precise ...


[PDF]Teaching Through Close Reading: Historical and ... - America in Class
meet state testing issues? ➢ I would like to learn more about techniques for active reading. ➢ What are strategies to effectively break up long readings to ...

[PDF]SUppORTING STUDENTS IN CLOSE READING - Center on ...
National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing ... The emphasis on close reading in the ELA & Literacy CCSS means that ..... words, types of sentence structures, visual components, and text cohesion strategies.7.

[PDF]The Effects of Comprehension Through Close Reading - Fisher Digital ...
comprehension of a text through a close read and a general reading strategy. The findings showed ..... of reading strategies to increase comprehension. I will be ...