Transcript Document

Keena Day, M.A.
Sheffield High School
Professional Development Norms
• We will work together as a community
• We will operate in a collegial and friendly
atmosphere, asking questions and making
comments as necessary.
• We will be fully “present” at the session by
becoming familiar with materials, silencing our
electronic devices, and by being attentive to
behaviors that affect physical and mental
engagement
“Every book has a
“Every
book has
skeleton
hidden
between
a skeleton hidden
its covers. Your job as
between its
an analytic
reader
is
to
covers. Your job
find
it.”
as an
analytic
reader is to find
Adler andit.”
Van Doren,
1940/1972
Close Reading Process
• First Level: Paraphrasing the Text on a
sentence by sentence level:
– State in your own words (and some of the
author’s) the meaning of each sentence as you
read)
– You must preserve the author’s original intent and
NOT change the meaning!
Paraphrase these quotes:
“He who hesitates is lost.”
“Money is the mother’s milk of politics”
Close Reading Process
• Second Level- Explicating
– Explicate the Thesis of the paragraph
• State the main point of the paragraph in one or two
sentences.
• Then elaborate on what you just paraphrased (“In other
words…”)
• Give examples of the meaning by tying it to concrete
situations in the real world. (For example….)
• Generate metaphors, analogies, pictures or diagrams of
the basic thesis to connect it to other meanings you
already understand
Close Reading Process
• Third Level: Analysis
– Anytime you read, you are reading the product of
an author’s reasoning. You can use your
understanding of the elements of reasoning,
therefore, to bring your reading to a higher level.
– Do this by asking the following questions:
Close Reading Process
• What is the author’s fundamental purpose?
• What is the author’s point of view with
respect to the issue?
• What are the author’s most basic concepts?
• What assumptions is the author making in his
or her reasoning?
• What is the key question the author is trying
to answer?
Close Reading Process
• Fourth Level: Evaluation
– We asses what we read by applying intellectual
standards to it, standards such as clarity,
precision, accuracy, relevance, significance, depth,
breadth, logic, fairness:
Close Reading Process
• Does the author clearly state his or her
meaning, or is the text vague, confused or
muddled in some way?
• Is the author accurate in what he or she
claims?
• Is the author sufficiently precise in providing
details and specifics?
• Does the author introduce irrelevant material,
thereby wandering from his/her purpose?
Close Reading Process
• Does the author take us into the important
complexities inherent in the subject, or is the
writing superficial?
• Does the author consider other relevant points of
view, or is the writing overly narrow in its
perspective?
• Is the text significant, or is the subject dealt with
in a trivial manner?
• Does the author display fairness, or does the
author take a one-sided, narrow approach?
GUIDE TO TEACHING CLOSE
READING
Step 1: Teach Annotating Skills
• Annotating is like students having silent
conversations with the text.
• As they read, students should engage the text
by asking questions, commenting on meaning,
marking events and passages, and identifying
and more deeply appreciating the craft of the
author and the tools the author employs to
achieve any number of desired effects.
The Annotation Process
1. Teach abbreviations (b/c, w/, w/o, etc.)
2. Teach students methods of annotating:
• Circling or boxing unfamiliar words
• Underlining key words, phrases or sentences
• Bracketing main ideas
• Jotting notes in the margin (understandings,
questions, inferences, observations)
• Drawing arrows to ideas that connect
• Using an asterisk to identify a particular recurring
element or rhetorical strategies noticed
The Annotation Process
• Teach students to automatically converse with
the text:
– Make comments about author’s purpose,
characters, events, etc.
– Make connections
– Questioning
– Inferences, connections, predictions they make
Number the paragraphs
The Common Core asks student to be able
to cite and refer to the text. One simple way
to do this is by numbering each paragraph,
section or stanza in the left hand margin.
When students refer to the text, require
them to state which paragraph they are
referring to. The rest of the class will be
able to quickly find the line being referred
to.
Chunk the text
When faced with a full page of text, reading
it can quickly become overwhelming for
students. Breaking up the text into smaller
sections (or chunks) makes the page much
more manageable for students.
At the beginning of the year, group the
paragraphs into chunks before you hand out
the assignment.
You look at the paragraphs to see where natural
chunks occur.
It is important to understand that there is no right
or wrong way to chunk the text, as long as you can
justify why you grouped certain paragraphs
together. By the end of the year, you let go of that
responsibility and ask your students to chunk the
text on their own.
They number the paragraphs then must make
decisions about what paragraphs will be grouped
together.
Middle School and Exceptional
Children Annotation Modification
Marking the Text is an easy skill to teach younger
students or students who struggle reading. It gives
them markings to use with text:
?
Questions
#
for comments
!
For things they agree with
*
For unfamiliar words
check mark for literary devices they see
LOL for something that makes you lol

for something good or favorable

for something sad or something they don’t
agree with
Give Students a Guide
http://teacher.depaul.edu/html/Guide_Assess_
Nonfiction.html
Getting Started with Close Reading
Start with Shorter Passages
• For students who have never really read for
information, shorter passages help students
practice without becoming overwhelmed.
• These passages can be excerpts from texts
with 2-5 very specific text dependent
questions.
(See Cold Mountain) explication
•Explain the contrast between paragraph 1 and 2. What
affect does this contrast have on the passage?
•After reading lines 1-5, it is obvious Inman has sympathy
for the three-legged dog. Upon reading the second
paragraph, what’s the irony of his following actions?
•How does the author use diction to relate the sudden
change in emotion?
•Who is the good guy? Who is the bad guy? How do you
know?
Close Reading Procedures
•
•
•
•
Number Paragraphs
Chunk Text
Allow students to read silently and annotate
Allow students to reread by listening to teacher
or audio read the text aloud
• Allow students time to critically reflect on what
they read
• Create text dependent questions about the text
• Create opportunities for discussion and writing
INVESTIGATIVE READING:
- “ORDEAL BY CHEQUE”
- SOLVING MYSTERIES
TWO MINUTE MYSTERIES
(DAVID SOBOL, 6-8)
FIVE MINUTE MYSTERIES
(9-12)
- WILL SHORT’S BRAIN BUSTERS
Silent Seminar
• Take quotes, pictures from text
• Post the quote in the center of butcher paper or
sticky poster paper (I usually have 5 of these with
different quotes/pictures)
• Leave space where students can make comments
• Students can only communicate through writing.
Students cannot talk to each other
• If they see a comment they disagree or agree
with, they can make comments directly by
drawing an arrow to the comment they want to
respond to
Kylene Beers and Robert Probst
Save the Last Word for Me
• After completing a close reading, have students
select a quote they liked or didn’t like from text
(or you can get really descriptive if it is a speech
or non-fiction and have them identify rhetorical
devices or something that was memorable to
them) and write it on an index card and a
response to it on the back
• In a circle, each student read his/her quote out
loud. Everyone else in the circle comments first
and the person who gave the quote goes last
Kylene Beers
Socratic Seminar
• By far, the most difficult strategy, but the most
fulfilling. Once kids get a hang of close
reading, Socratic Seminar is the best way for
them to show off what they know.
• I generally choose a piece of text (mostly
articles, speeches, editorials) and give kids 24
hours to read and annotate.
• If you really want to make things spicy in the
classroom, pick something controversial!
Socratic Seminar
• The Seminar itself can be used as an assessment
for you to see who understood what they read.
• All students are given a rubric so they can see
what is expected of them.
• I give classroom norms (one at a time, rule of 3,
eye contact, posture, diction, voice level), but
everyone must speak
• I keep track of who says what on my own master
copy, then give students ratings of their work
• Once every 9 weeks, we have an “Act Like an
Intellect Day” (to promote vocabulary use)
Sample Socratic Seminar
Directions: Close Reading
#1 Number paragraphs
#2 Chunk the Text (we will complete #s 1-9)
#3 Read Independently and Annotate
#4 Listen to the Excerpt (teacher reads aloud)
#5 Write a critical reflection (thoughts about the
text, parts you agree with, disagree with,
question)
Favorites and Resources
• Excerpts and Texts I LOVE!
– 6th grade “Eleven” Ciseneros
– 8th grade “Runagate, Rungate” Hayden
– 9th grade “I Have a Dream”, “The Cat Bill”, “Letter from
Birmingham Jail”, “A Summer Tragedy”
– 10th grade “Second Inaugural (Lincoln)”, “Why I Want a Wife”
– 11th grade JFK Inaugural, “Proposal to Abolish Grading”
• Resources:
• Read-Aloud Anthology by Janet Allen (Grades 6 and up)
• The Read Aloud Handbook and Read Aloud Anthology by Jim Trelease
(7-12)
• The New Yorker Magazine (9-12)
• Scholastic.com: Comprehension Skills: 40 Short Passages for Close
Reading Grades 1-6
• Articles, historical documents, photographs, charts, graphs, EOC/ACT
passages
When You Know Close Reading is
Successful
http://portal.sliderocket.com/DHLSV/Whisperof-Aids-