1. Notice and Note Strategies for Close Reading
Presented by: Stacey Darchicourt

2. What is a Signpost?
A signpost is something that helps you know where you’re going or reminds you to pay attention to something.
Turn to a partner and tell what you think a signpost is.
From your examples, I’d say that a signpost is something that helps you know where you’re going or reminds you to pay attention to something.

3. When you take a journey through a book, don’t forget to STOP
When you take a journey through a book, don’t forget to STOP! At any Notice and Note Sign Posts
When you take a journey through a book, don’t forget to STOP! At any Notice and Note Sign Posts
Aha Moment
Contrast & Contradictions
Tough Questions
Authors put signposts into their stories, too. They may not look like signposts you see on our roads, but they are similar because they help us know what to watch for.
Words of Wiser
Again and Again
Memory Moment

4. Contrast & Contradictions
When a character does something that contrasts with what you’d expect or contradicts his earlier acts or statements. Text Clue: Author shows feelings or actions the reader hasn’t seen before & doesn’t expect.
Example: “Thank You, Ma’m” This is a story about a boy who tries to steal a purse from a woman. As you read, be on the lookout for a place where the author shows you a character acting in a way that is a contrast or contradiction with how he or she has been acting or how we would expect the character would act. When you notice that contrast or contradiction, stop and ask yourself one question: Why would the character act that way?
As you read, be on the lookout for a place where the author shows you a character acting in a way that is a contrast or contradiction with how he or she has been acting or how we would expect the character would act. When you notice that contrast or contradiction, stop and ask yourself one question: Why would the character act that way?

5. Thank You, Ma’m by Langston Hughes
When you notice that contrast or contradiction, stop and ask yourself one question: Why would the character act that way?
Distribute copies of “Thank You, Ma’m”

6. Aha! Moment
When a character realizes, understands, or finally figures out something. Text Clue: Author shows feelings or actions the reader hasn’t seen before & doesn’t expect.
Aha Moments are those moments when we realize something, and that realization, in some way, changes our actions.
When you’re reading, the author often gives you clues that the character has come to an important understanding by having the character say something like “Suddenly I realized” or “In an instant I saw” or “It came to me in a flash” or “I now knew” or “I finally understood that.”
STOP, Ask yourself: How might this change things?
have you ever walked into a class, seen people looking through their class notes, and suddenly remembered what it was you were supposed to do the night before-study for that big test? That’s an Aha Moment.
Or have you ever been looking around your room, peering over yet another stack of clothes on the floor or papers on your bed and realized that your room really had turned into a disaster?
You suddenly are aware that your room has crossed that line from messy to, well, filthy, and whether you want to or not, you just must clean it up. That’s an Aha Moment
TEXT: CRASH

7. Crash, by Jerry Spinelli
It was a sunny summer day. I was in the front yard digging a hole with my little red shovel. I heard something like whistling. I looked up. It was whistling. It was coming from a funny-looking dorky little runt walking up the sidewalk. Only he wasn’t just walking regular. He was walking like he owned the place, both hands in his pockets, sort of swaying lah-dee-dah with each step. Strollll-ing. Strolling and gawking at the houses and whistling a happy little dorky tune like some Sneezy or Snoozy or whatever their names are. And he wore a button, a big one. It covered about half his chest. Which wasn’t that hard since his chest was so scrawny. So here he comes strolling, whistling, gawking, buttoning, dorking up the sidewalk, onto my sidewalk, my property, and all of a sudden I knew what I had to do, like there was a big announcement coming down from the sky: Don’t let him pass.
“all of a sudden I knew what I had to do,” and I realize the author has given me a clue that the character has suddenly discovered something. – when I realize this, I want to stop and think about what that means.
Spinellie then emphasizes the point even more strongly by adding, “like there was a big announcement coming down from the sky.” That’s another clue in the text that the character has suddenly grown aware of something.
Both phrases have let you know the character has grasped something important, and that insight is going to change things.
Then Spinelli tells us what Crash has realized: He can’t let that kid pass.
When you see a character have an Aha Moment you need to ask yourself, How might this change things?
What is he going to do next? “I think he’s going to confront this kid he has referred to as “a funny-looking dorky little runt.” He’s going make him stop, and he’s probably going to do something to humiliate the kid.

8. Tough Questions
Tough questions are those questions we sometimes ask ourselves, or someone else, that seem, at least for a while, not to have an answer. We might ask, “How will I ever get over this?” when we hear that a loved one has died, we might ask, “What should I do?’ when we have a difficult, almost impossible, choice to make, we might ask, “Am I brave enough to say no?” when we’re asked to do something we know we shouldn’t do. Tough questions are a part of life because life is, well, sometimes tough.
Authors often show us these Tough Questions in fairly straightforward ways: The main character either asks a trusted person or him- or herself a question that obviously doesn’t have an easy answer. Often Tough Questions show up in pairs: “Why won’t they talk to me anymore? Why is everyone treating me this way?”
Occasionally, the character might not ask a question, but might say something like “I wonder if ….” Once you notice the Tough Question (or the statement that begins with “I wonder”), it’s important to stop and ask yourself, What does this question make me wonder about?
TEXT: A Long Walk to Water

9. A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
Salva lowered his head and ran. He ran until he could not run anymore. Then he walked. For hours, until the sun was nearly gone from the sky. Other people were walking, too. There were so many of them that they couldn’t all be from the school village; they must have come from the whole area. As Salva walked, the same thoughts kept going through his head in rhythm with his steps. Where are we going? Where is my family? When will I see them again?
This is a book about what happens to an eleven-year-old who lives in Sudan during a time in which rebels are raiding villages. In a scene early in the novel, eleven-year-old Salva has become separated from the rest of his family after rebels have attached his small Sudanese village, and he’s now alone and scared and running.
For an eleven-year-old boy, these are obviously painful questions. When an author shows me the difficult questions that a character is considering, I want to stop and think about those questions. They show me the conflicts—the problems—that character is worried about.
I want to ask myself, What do these questions make me wonder about?
As I think about Salva’s difficult questions and ask myself what they make me wonder about, I wonder if I could have survived without knowing where my family was or even if they were still alive. I have to wonder, too, how the people he is with will react.
The people are in desperate circumstances, too, so I wonder if they’ll help or if they’ll just ignore this small child. They’re trying to escape, too, and might see Salva as nothing more than another burden. They might just turn their backs on him. Most of all, I wonder what he’s going to have to do to survive.

10. Words of the Wiser
When a character (probably older and wiser) takes the protagonist aside and offers serious advice. Text clue: A wiser, often older, character offers a life lesson, usually in a quiet moment.
Ask yourself: What is the life lesson and how might it affect the character?
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Stop video at 1:18
Lion King – Mufasa and Simba
TEXT: Riding Freedom is about a young girl named Charlotte who lives during the mid-1800s. Her parents are dead and she lives in an orphanage. She loves horses, but the overseer of the orphanage where she lives forbids her to work with them simply because she’s a girl. Life there is hard, and at some point she realizes she cannot stay there, so she decides to run away from the orphanage. Let’s take a look at a short scene, the one where Charlotte tells a trusted older and wiser adult at the orphanage that she must escape.

11. Again & Again
When you notice a word, phrase, or situation mentioned over and over. Text clue: A repeated image, phrase, or reference.
Ask yourself: Why does this keep happening again and again? The answers will tell you about the theme and conflict, or they might foreshadow what will happen later.
When you first notice an event, you may not think anything of it at the moment, but if it happens again and then again, you’ll probably notice it. It’s the pattern, the repetition, the event that occurs again and again, that let’s you know something is up—if you notice it. And if you think about it.
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The last video is a clip from the movie Divergent – (the actors/actress have to jump multiple times, why does this keep happening?) Stop video at 1:00
TEXT: Hatchet

12. Memory Moment
When the author interrupts the action to tell you about a memory. Text clue: “I suddenly remembered…” or “I remember …” or “Thinking back …” Ask yourself: Why might this memory be important?
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TEXT: Hope Was Here

13. Reading Nonfiction Notice & Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies
Coming Soon!!!!
Karate Kid video to show aha moment, words of the wiser, again and again