1. 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.”

2. 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.

3. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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

9. 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.

11. 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 _________.”

12. 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.

14. 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!

15. Court Allam @ iTeach. iCoach. iBlog.
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Court iTeach. iCoach. iBlog.