1. Close Reading

2. “Anyway, the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet once, they couldn’t, because there aren’t enough skulls!”
—Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 3

3. “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

4. “X-ray the book”

5. Creating a Close Reading

6. Creating a Close Reading
Use a short passage
Creating a Close Reading

7. Creating a Close Reading
Use a short passage
Re-reading
Creating a Close Reading

8. Creating a Close Reading
Use a short passage
Re-reading
“Read with a pencil”
Creating a Close Reading

9. Creating a Close Reading
Use a short passage
Re-reading
“Read with a pencil”
Text-dependent questions
Creating a Close Reading

10. Creating a Close Reading
Use a short passage
Re-reading
“Read with a pencil”
Text-dependent questions
Give students the chance to struggle a bit
Creating a Close Reading

11. “Read like a detective, write like a reporter.”

12. “Salvador, Late or Early”
A Close Reading of
“Salvador, Late or Early”
Close reading is almost always and encounter with the text first…no modeling first
Participants read and then answer a question
Doug will read to them and model thinking focusing on one thing…sentence structure
Traditionally this piece would be one of three pieces read in one period
Now this text would be read for three days
(Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, 1991)