Getting to the Core
Superior standards
Supportive school climate
Successful students
CLOSE READING
STRATEGIES
CERTIFICATED LEARNING AND ACHIEVEMENT SPECIALIST
MONICA CURIEL
STAFF DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT
JUDITH BARDEN, DIRECTOR
SEPTEMBER 26, 2012
Today’s Objective:
• Learn new Close
Reading strategies to
help students access
complex text.
Students’ success or failure in school
(and out of school!) is closely tied to
their ability to comprehend expository
text (Kamil, 2003).
6
“Every book has a
skeleton hidden
between its
covers. Your job
as an analytic
reader is to
find it.”
Adler and Van Dore, 1940/1972
Use a short passage
“Read with a pencil”
Note what’s confusing
Pay attention to patterns
Give students the chance to struggle a bit
Creating a Close Reading
• For good readers, “close reading”
happens internally.
 Most students need training with this
• “Closeness” occurs with the students’
engagement with the text, NOT
submission to the
teacher.
How to Read Closely…
Read this passage silently:
There are known knowns. There are things we
know that we know. There are known unknowns.
That is to say there are things that we know we
don’t know. But there are also unknown
unknowns. There are things we don’t know we
don’t know.
~ Donald Rumsfeld
Effective First
Readings
• What did you just read?
• Why is it necessary to reread
this text?
• What will you do to address
your “confusions” as you
reread?
KEY WORDS
• Students can highlight key words.
• Read the poem “Hard on the Gas”
by Janet S. Wong
*Identify one or more words you
consider to be central to the
meaning of the poem.
*Be prepared to explain your
choices.
*Why do you think the author
chose these words instead of
another?
*How do these words capture the
centrality of the text?
Strategies for
Close Reading
“Hard on the Gas” by Janet S. Wong
My grandfather taught himself to drive
rough, the way he learned to live,
push the pedal, hard on the gas,
rush up to 50,
coast a bit
rush, rest, rush, restwhen you clutch the bar above your right shoulder
he shoots you a look that asks,
Who said the ride would be smooth?
PULLED QUOTES
• Magazines often pull and box
important quotations from
articles to attract reader
attention.
• Requiring students to pull quotes
helps them determine
significance.
*Work with your table to identify a
significant quotation from the
article “Mass Grave Mystery”.
Write a short justification for the
quotation you selected. Why is it
significant?
Strategies for
Close Reading
WRECKING A TEXT
• Highlighting the choices the
author makes in the text.
• Then Mr. Fox chose three of the
plumpest hens and with a clever
flick of his jaws he killed them
instantly. (Roald Dahl)
• How could you rewrite this
sentence? Why do you think Dahl
made the word choices he did?
Strategies for
Close Reading
“Mass Grave Mystery”
By Matthew Brunwasser found in Archaeology magazine
With expository text…
• Highlight key words/ideas in
the text
• Summarize the text in your
own words-Wreck the text!
TEXT DEPENDENT QUESTIONS
• Standards based questions
answered through reading the text
• Should be higher level
• Give attention to different levels
of discourse
--text structure
--voice
--main idea or message
--vocabulary
--sentence structure
--academic vocabulary
• Require teacher preparation and
student thought
Strategies for
Close Reading
Text Independent
Text Dependent
What do you know about ancient
Rome?
What is the little red hen planning?
Do you think mass killings like this are
okay during war?
What just happened?
In what other cultures has this type of
thing happened?
How does the hen feel about others’
response to her request for help?
What makes you think so?
What is your opinion on what
happened to these people?
How does the author help us
understand what a mill is?
If you could go to Rome, what
historical places would you like to
visit?
What does the hen do once her bread
is ready to eat? Why?
What other mysteries have you read
about?
What do you think the author is telling
us?
Text Independent
Text Dependent
Have you ever seen a hen?
Where was this grave found?
Have you ever eaten freshly baked
bread?
According to the article, what is the
only thing that is certain about
these deaths?
How do you feel when you ask for
others for help and they don’t help?
What is your favorite animal?
Who in your life works really hard?
How might you help him or her?
Remember our trip to the high school
farm? What animals did we see?
Text
Independent
Questions
Text
Dependent
Questions
Write at least two more
text dependent
questions for this
piece of text
TEXT DEPENDENT QUESTIONS
• Standards based questions
answered through reading the text
• Should be higher level
• Give attention to different levels
of discourse
--text structure
--voice
--main idea or message
--vocabulary
--sentence structure
--academic vocabulary
• Require teacher preparation and
student thought
Strategies for
Close Reading
Another strategy
in our toolkit
Use Close Reading
to:
• access complex texts
• analyze poetry and
fiction
• gain a deeper
understanding of
the reading
• Use a piece from your
text, article, primary
source…to create a
Close Reading activity.
Bring back the lesson
and some samples
from your lesson to
the next staff
meeting.