1. Close reading strategies
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

2. Today’s Objective:
Learn new Close Reading strategies to help students access complex text.

3. Students’ success or failure in school (and out of school
Students’ success or failure in school (and out of school!) is closely tied to their ability to comprehend expository text (Kamil, 2003). 6

4. “Every book has a skeleton hidden between its covers
“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

5. Teaching Complex Texts
Identify the complex text and evaluate it
Determine bundled standards for text
Identify the required performance task
Do backwards planning
Consider text demands-cognitive and academic language
Use close readings to dig deeply into the text

6. Creating a Close Reading
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

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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?
Common sense to us, but students just keep reading when they find text difficulty instead of trying to figure it out

10. Strategies for Close Reading
KEY WORDS
Strategies for Close Reading
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?
Highlight key words that are confusing, that pop out, or have special significance/important in the text

11. “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, rest- when you clutch the bar above your right shoulder he shoots you a look that asks, Who said the ride would be smooth?
photocopy

12. Strategies for Close Reading
PULLED QUOTES
Strategies for Close Reading
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?
Doesn’t have to be from an article. It can be from the text or a story in Holt

13. Strategies for Close Reading
WRECKING A TEXT
Strategies for Close Reading
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?
Discuss author’s purpose and the use of figurative language. Good to show revising in writing and how and why writer’s “up” their language.

14. “Mass Grave Mystery” With expository text…
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!
With expository, you can “wreck the text” by putting the information into your own words-SUMMARY

15. Strategies for Close Reading
TEXT DEPENDENT QUESTIONS
Strategies for Close Reading
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

16. 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?
We’re used to building background and asking students to make connections to their lives. Although that is still important in certain cases to increase motivation, we need to focus on questions that require evidence from the text

17. Text Dependent Where was this grave found?
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?
Start with simple recall to have student success, but make sure to move up to critical thinking-use handout as a guideline (gate close reading and dok)

18. Text Independent Questions Text Dependent Questions
Write at least two more
text dependent
questions for this
piece of text

19. Strategies for Close Reading
TEXT DEPENDENT QUESTIONS
Strategies for Close Reading
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

20. Another strategy in our toolkit
Use Close Reading to:
access complex texts
analyze poetry and fiction
gain a deeper understanding of the reading

21. 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.
me lessons on Big Idea/Essential Questions and Close Reading and I can upload those to my website for everyone to access. Build a bank of good lessons