Close Reading Strategies to Support the Common Core Empowering students by teaching them “how to own a text, rather than letting the text own them.”

First: Number paragraphs CC asks students to be able to cite and refer to the text. A simple way to do this is to number each paragraphs, sections, stanzas, etc. When students refer to the text, they should be able to state which paragraph they are referring to.

Chunking Students are often overwhelmed when facing a full page of text. Breaking the text into smaller chunks makes it more manageable to them. Ahead of time chunk text into manageable, natural chunks. As students move toward mastery of this technique, they should be able to break a longer passage into natural chunks and justify why they chunked it as they did.

Underline or Circle with a Purpose Underline the “important stuff” is too vague. Decide what is instrumental in the piece the students are reading/studying and have students target these things. This helps students to focus their attention much better than asking them to “underline the important stuff.” Example: When studying argumentative writing, one might have the students underline all claims/belief statements made by the author.

Circle Key Terms Key Terms are words that fall into one or more of the following categories: 1. Words/phrases that are defined in the text 2. Words/phrases that are repeated throughout the text 3. Words/phrases that are instrumental enough to the passage that if one only circles five in the entire passage, he/she would have a pretty good idea what the entire passage was about.

Other Ideas for Underlining/Circling Names of sources Power verbs Figurative language Imagery Unfamiliar words Character traits Words that help establish tone Significant idea/quote – “Why?” in margin Satire/Sarcasm/Understatement

Use left margin for WHAT the author is SAYING Be specific. Give students a “game plan” for what they will write. Using the chunks, have students summarize each chunk in 10 or less words.

Use right margin for Digging Deeper into the Text Again, give students a specific task. Some ideas would include 1. Having students use a power verb to describe what the author is DOING. Examples: illustrating, describing, comparing, interpreting, summarizing, contrasting, explaining, etc. **It is not enough to use the power verb alone. They must be specific as well. Not just “comparing” but “comparing the characteristics of _________ with _________.”

Use right margin for Digging Deeper into the Text (Cont.) 2. Having students represent the information of that chunk with a picture. 3. Having students ask a questions that digs deeper into the content of the text of that chunk. 4. Having students give specific details/quotes that support the main idea/saying statement.

College and Career Ready Students After completing these steps, students have read a passage multiple times rather than skimming through it one time highlighting “the important stuff,” hopefully making them a master of the text rather than a slave to it!

Court Allam @ iTeach. iCoach. iBlog. Credits Court Allam @ iTeach. iCoach. iBlog.