Close Reading - Target Setting By now, you should have enough information to be able to say how you are doing in Close Reading. This information may include your Intermediate Two component marks; the target mark you have been given and your current working level. You will have had some feedback in class about your work. Most importantly, YOU will know how challenging you are finding the Higher Close Reading work. It is one thing to say that your target might be to “improve my Close Reading” but quite another to decide how you are going to do this.

Higher Close Reading - Target Setting Look at some of the suggestions below. Be honest with yourself, what could you realistically do to help you improve your grades? Tick the strategies that you are going to use. Set myself a target to read good quality novels, for example a novel every 2 weeks or 3 novels between October and Christmas. Keep a vocabulary notebook and decide that I are going to use it to write down new words. Allocate time in my study timetable to look over my notebook. Read a certain number of opinion articles from broadsheet newspapers each week. Every day would be ideal but three a week as part of my study programme would help. As well as reading newspaper articles, try to improve my understanding by: writing down the main idea of each paragraph in the article; summarising the main point of the article; identifying and looking up unfamiliar words.; identifying and thinking about how linking sentences work in the passage. As well as reading newspaper articles, try to improve my analysis by highlighting: interesting words or phrases; punctuation; interesting sentence structure; effective use of imagery; identifying examples of changing tone. Learn off by heart punctuation and the function performed by each punctuation mark. Learn the names of different types of sentence structure and the reasons these are used. Learn off by heart the different formulae for answering the different types of questions. Study examples carefully and ensure I understand them. (Higher Close Reading Revision Booklet.) Practise answering different types of questions. Read through previous question papers and try to identify the different types of questions; decide what the question is asking me to do. Practise regularly with past papers. Use these to identify the ideas I find difficult and ask for help with formulae or ideas I don’t understand.