1. Close Reading Background from Douglas Fisher Why:
Strategies can be used in all subject areas.
Strategies will help teachers with evaluations in the areas of student engagement and critical thinking.
Get kids to be college and career ready.
Background from Douglas Fisher

2. Our Ongoing Goal To ensure all students are career and college ready
Background from Douglas Fisher

3. Today’s Goal
Engage staff in collegial conversations regarding close reading
Identify the components of close reading and make connections to current literacy practices
Participate in a close reading lesson

4. Anticipation Guide Read each statement.
Decide if the statement is true or false and mark the appropriate box.
Under each statement support your answer using background knowledge and experiences.
Discuss answers with a partner.
2 minutes to complete
2 minutes to discuss with an elbow partner

5. Cloze Reading Close Reading is not…
Andrea and Gilberto passed an ice cream shop every day when they walked home from school. Every Friday they brought money to _______ and stopped at the ice cream _________ to buy a double-dip ice cream ___________. One ________ Gilberto forgot to bring ________ money and when they got to __________ ice cream shop, he said, “Oh no. I can’t buy an ice cream _________ today.”
Cloze Reading
There has been some confusion around close reading—it is NOT the same as cloze reading

6. Close Reading is….
“Close Reading – an intensive analysis of a text in order to come to terms with what it says, how it says it, and what it means.”
Tim Shanahan
Now that we know what close reading is not…let’s look how it is defined by the leading experts in literacy.

7. Close Reading is….
“Focused, sustained reading and rereading of a text for the purpose of understanding key points, gathering evidence, and building knowledge.
Pearson

8. Primary Purpose of Close Reading
The primary objective of a close reading is to afford students with the opportunity to assimilate new textual information with their existing background knowledge and prior experiences to expand their schema.
Doug Fisher
The challenge is in not becoming so focused on background knowledge and prior experiences such that we end up spending little time on the textual information. Activation alone, although important, doesn’t expand knowledge. This is one of the main differences when using close reading strategies. You want the kids to discover and make connections themselves. Let the kids build background knowledge as they read the text multiple times.

9. Secondary Purpose of Close Reading
A second purpose of a close reading is to build the necessary habits of readers when they engage with a complex piece of text.
Doug Fisher
These include building stamina and persistence when confronted by a reading that isn’t easily consumed. In addition, students need to build the habit of considering their own background knowledge when there isn’t someone prompting them to do so. Paul and Elder (2003) recommended that students regularly engage in four such habits:
1. Identifying their own purpose for reading the text
2. Determining the author’s purpose for writing it
3. Developing their own schema
4. Considering the thought systems of a discipline, or what we might call genres and discipline-specific language (e.g., a poem differs from a science article)
(up to 10 Minutes)

10. Characteristics of a Close Reading Lesson
Use of short pieces of literary or non-fiction text
Use of selected passages from a longer text
Multiple readings of a text
Annotation of text
Discussions among students (think pair share, elbow partners discuss etc.)
Asking and answering text-dependent questions
Writing about the text using evidence from the text

11. Text Dependent Questions

12. Text-Dependent Questions are not…
Low-level, literal, or recall questions
Focused on comprehension strategies
Just questions…
Low-level referring to Bloom’s Taxonomy or Webb’s Depth of Knowledge; good TDQs can be very complex and inferential.
Questions are meant to point towards the most salient aspects of the text; questions are not meant to test the skill or strategy of the week.
TDQs are not just questions; they can be powerful. Along with high quality complex text –
We know what TDQ’ are not. The next slide takes a closer look at what TDQ’s are.

13. Text-Dependent Questions...
Can only be answered with evidence from the text.
Can be literal (checking for understanding) but must also involve analysis, synthesis, evaluation.
Focus on word, sentence, and paragraph, as well as larger ideas, themes, or events.
Focus on difficult portions of text in order to enhance reading proficiency.
Can also include prompts for writing and discussion questions.
TDQ’s should not require background knowledge (stores of background knowledge can be added to by collecting the evidence from the text to further build knowledge, or can be tapped into to make meaning of the text.)
Questions that involve analysis, synthesis, evaluation actually point towards the most difficult parts of text. Literal question do not.
TDQ’s are questions that are asked about words, sentences, paragraphs, big ideas, themes, relationships, etc.
TDQ’s are an opportunity to address the academic vocabulary and syntax that are features of complex text – the features that make text difficult for students.
This means that good questions actually make students stronger and more capable readers.

14. Three Types of Text-Dependent Questions
When you're writing or reviewing a set of questions, consider the following three categories:
Questions that assess themes and central ideas
Questions that assess knowledge of vocabulary
Questions that assess syntax and structure

15. Non-Examples and Examples
Not Text-Dependent
Text-Dependent
In “Casey at the Bat,” Casey strikes out. Describe a time when you failed at something.
In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King discusses nonviolent protest. Discuss, in writing, a time when you wanted to fight against something that you felt was unfair.
In “The Gettysburg Address” Lincoln says the nation is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Why is equality an important value to promote?
What makes Casey’s experiences at bat humorous?
What can you infer from King’s letter about the letter that he received?
“The Gettysburg Address” mentions the year According to Lincoln’s speech, why is this year significant to the events described in the speech?
Text-dependent questions require students to pay attention to the text at hand and to draw evidence from that text.
What does this look like in the classroom?
Teachers insist that classroom experiences stay deeply connected to the text on the page and that students develop habits for making evidentiary argument both in conversation, as well as in writing, to assess comprehension of a text.
Students have rich and rigorous conversations and develop writing that is dependent on a common text.

16. Which of the following questions require students to read the text closely?
If you were present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, what would you do?
What are the reasons listed in the preamble for supporting their argument to separate from Great Britain?

17. If you were present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, what would you do?
What are the reasons listed in the preamble for supporting their argument to separate from Great Britain?

18. Annotating Text to Deepen Understanding
Doug Fisher
and
Nancy Frey
Annotating Text to Deepen Understanding

19. Annotation is a note of any form made while reading text.
Annotating the text can take ANY form—sketching, words, phrases, and/or complete sentences.
“Reading with a pencil.”

20. Annotation slows down the reader in order to deepen understanding.

21. People have been annotating texts since there have been texts to annotate.

22. ANNOTATION IS NOT HIGHLIGHTING

23. If you want to teach effective annotation, begin with the purpose.

24. Annotation in PreK-2 Language experience approach
Interactive writing and shared pen activities

25. Using
Questioning
in Fifth Grade

26. Modeled annotation in Seventh Grade

27. Modeling in 9th Grade English
15 min total 25 min

28. What we Already Know
Give out Handout Taking a Closer Look at Close Reading. Work in pairs or small groups to read and discuss. Share with large group.
10 min

29. Let’s Try It!
Pass out article, page protectors, and dry erase markers.
Let participants know that the excerpt comes from the article Implementing the Common Core State Standards: A Primer on “Close Reading of Text” by Shelia Brown and Lee Kappes

30. How To Do A Close Read Read with a pencil in hand – annotate the text
Look for patterns in the things you’ve noticed about the text – repetitions, contradictions, similarities
This is whatever the teacher wants the students to look for: key ideas & details, central message or theme, character traits, etc
Ask questions about the patterns you’ve noticed – especially how and why

31. We will be using these annotations for our purpose today
We will be using these annotations for our purpose today. When we follow up with smaller groups we will adapt the annotations for each grade level and make progressions from k-12.

32. Anticipation Guide
Close reading should focus on background knowledge to expand knowledge of text.
Students should reread text several times when participating in a CLOSE reading.
CLOSE reading should foster student interactions and discussion.
It is best to use on level reading materials for CLOSE reading instruction.
A text dependent question is a question that can be answered from the text word for word.
Annotation does not slow down the reader when they are reading complex text.

33. Resources The Aspen Institute Education And Society Program
thecore.org
Wisconsin Department of
Public Instruction
Portland Public Schools
(Department of Instruction,
Curriculum, and Assessment)

34. Instructional Coaching Website
Instructional Resources