Close Reading Copyright © 2008 Laying the Foundation®, Inc., Dallas, TX.  All rights reserved.  Visit:  www.layingthefoundation.org

The basis of any English course using Pre-AP* strategies is reading— Active Dynamic Informed Reading Pre-AP* is a trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board. The College Entrance Examination Board was not involved in the production of this material.

We must choose layered texts: texts that contain complex characters, multiple themes, and rich veins of appropriate and often surprising diction, figurative language, irony and ambiguity, varying syntactical patterns, shifts in tone. and

We must choose texts that are rhetorically and structurally dense, texts that invite a close second or third reading, texts that reveal new patterns of language at each reading.

The three levels of reading are 3) Level Three Reading: reading beyond the lines. 2) Level Two Reading: reading between the lines, 1) Level One Reading: reading on the line,

At the first level, students find meaning directly in the text. The key questions include who? what? where? when? Bloom would call this level knowledge (remember) and comprehension (understand).

At the second level, students interpret what is in the text. The key questions include how? and why? Key verbs might include represents, suggests, personifies, and alludes to. Bloom would call this level application (apply/demonstrate) and analysis (analyze).

They move from the “What?” of the text to the At the third level, students move out of the text to connect to universal meaning. They move from the “What?” of the text to the “So What?” Bloom would call this level of reading synthesis and evaluation (evaluate and create).

The key questions on the third level of reading are: why is this text important? what does this text have to do with me? what do I think or believe about the ideas in this text? what does this text say about human beings as individuals or in groups --about life?

Close reading means learning to paraphrase accurately. reading for more than plot. looking for more than one layer of meaning (personal, universal, political, moral, spiritual). recognizing the emotional overtones of word choice, images, and details. finding patterns and contrasts.

One way Pre-AP students can be taught to address a text is by finding the patterns and contrasts. The basis of all literature, in fact of all life, consists of contrasts.

Buy Now! Close Reading also means learning to analyze an argument, a crucial life skill.

Students can first learn to analyze the arguments of others, Two separate skills are involved in argument and persuasion – reading and writing. Students can first learn to analyze the arguments of others, and then they can model in their own writing or speaking what they have seen or heard others do.

All their lives, students will be confronted with texts of one sort or another. The ability to read between the lines will protect students from those who might manipulate them through language. To be able to read a text closely is vital to a well-informed, clear-thinking citizen of the twenty-first century. This is our task. All Clip Art © 2004, Microsoft Corp.