1. Close Reading
The Book of Yolek

2. What is Close Reading?
Annotate: Begin by reading with a pencil or highlighter in hand.
"Annotating" means underlining or highlighting key words and phrases—anything that strikes you as surprising or significant, or that raises questions—as well as making notes in the margins. When we respond to a text in this way, we not only force ourselves to pay close attention, but we also begin to think with the author.

3. Annotate
Take five minutes to annotate the poem

4. Sentences What are they like? What are the words like?
Do you notice any patterns?
Who is speaking? To whom?
Why is the speaker speaking?

5. Tone What is the speaker’s tone like?
Does it change at all throughout the poem?
How do you know?

6. Groups Get into groups of three or four. There should be four groups.
Each group will fill in a different word sheet.

7. Memories
Meal
Walk
Camp
Home

8. Explication Essay: The Book of Yolek
Prompt : How do memories function in the poem? What do the repeated words “The Book of Yolek” do for the text? What emotions are evoked by the speaker of the poem? What does this say about the speaker’s memories of the Holocaust?
Prompt 2: Why does the author choose the pronoun “you” to address the audience? What does this technique suggest? How would the story be different had the speaker used a different pronoun?