Falling In Love With Close Reading
Lesson for Analyzing Text...and Life!
What Can I Use to Introduce Close Reading?
- Song Lyrics
- Commercials
- Food
- Poems
- A read aloud that your class if familiar with
- Person
- Anything...
What Close Reading IS & is NOT...
- interaction between reader and text
- careful observations and interpretations
- involves re-reading, often a short portion
- noticing patterns (repetition, changes, word choice, etc)
- carrying new ideas to whole text
Close Reading IS NOT:
- to diminish engagement
- to be dependent on teacher prompting
- to be isolated
- to be interrupted with activities
- a one time lesson and done
- to be forced
Chris Lehman @iChrisLehman & Kate Roberts @teachkate
Structure to Build Independence
- Reading through Lenses: Decide what you will be paying attention to while reading and collect those details.
- Find Patterns: Look across all details and find patterns that link them to one another.
- Develop New Understanding: Take the patterns and what you have learned to put together in a new, deeper understanding of the text that is evidence based.
Hairs from House on Mango Street
My Students Are Already Close Readers...what next?
2. It is common for students find one pattern quickly and be done. Instead - challenge them to seek out contrasting patterns. For example, "How characters say one thing but do another or how the author describes a subject mostly one way but in a few instances points to another view to consider."
3. It is common for students to tell you that the repeated verses in popular songs are also the message of the song. Instead - let's listen to the song and close read the lyrics to investigate if in fact this is true based on patterns.
4. It is common for students to read, then retell and answer questions. Instead - let's continue to be intentional and set an expectation to read with a purpose, one purpose. For example, "Today we are going to focus specifically on what close reading for text evidence might reveal about the characters in our books."