Close Reading Looking at Text More Closely to Extract Meaning

1. Close Reading Looking at Text More Closely to Extract Meaning Dayton Independent School District August 31, 2012 Ruthie Staley, Kentucky Department of Education, ELA Content Specialist

2. Today’s Learning Target • I can use research based strategies to implement close reading that address the ELA Common Core Standards in my lesson plans and instruction. • I can read closely to determine what a text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it. • I can cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

3. What Is Close Reading? • Keeping your eyes on the text to read the content very carefully, paying attention to details. • Close Reading requires active thinking and analyzing of the content to make decisions.

4. Close Reading • Close reading is different from a summary or the big idea. • Text-dependent, discipline-specific questions support the need for students to incorporate close reading because they MUST cite evidence directly from the text • This is a skill that will remain one of the students’ most practical literacy skill throughout their college and careers. • The majority of career paths depend on close reading to remain current in the particular field.

5. What Is Close Reading? Defined by EngageNY.org: Students will silently read the passage, first independently, and then follow along with the text as the teacher and/or student read aloud. The teacher will then lead students through a set of concise, text dependent questions that compel students to reread specific passages and discover the structure and meaning.

6. Getting Started • Treat the passage as if it were complete in itself. • Read it at least a few times, once aloud. • Determine what the passage is about and try to paraphrase. • Begin with a sense of the passage’s meaning.

7. How Do I Teach Close Reading? • Tim Shanahan’s guidelines for Pre-Reading (www.shanahanliteracy.com) • Read the text first • Remember, not all pre-reading has to take place before reading • Let students read first and try to reinvent the author • Be strategic when revealing information • Keep the amount of pre-reading short and in proportion to the length of the text • Incorporate strategies that support Close Reading

8. Strategy #1 – Identify Word Meaning for Literary Text • Determine meanings of words and references • Note and verify interesting connotations of words • Look up any words you do not know or used in unfamiliar ways • Consider the diction of the passage • What is the source of the language? • Did the author coin any words? • Look at: slang words, innuendoes, puns, ambiguities • Do the words have different entymolgies?

9. Strategy # 1 –Identify Word Meaning for Informational Text • Identify domain specific words or Tier III words • Look up words that you do not know or that are used in unfamiliar ways • Consider how they are used in the piece of text or how their understanding is crucial when understanding the content • Make sure you have the correct meaning of the word as it is used in context

10. Strategy # 2 - Teach and Practice Text Annotation • Replace highlighters with pen or pencil. (Highlighting can lure students into a dangerous passivity. ) • Students mark only the most important sections of text • Students stop and write their own thinking in words • Annotating text works in all content areas and is especially useful when text gets more difficult

11. Text Coding Jotting simple symbols in the margins of a text to represent your thinking There are several ways to introduce this to students: • Modeling it yourself showing a set of codes and letting students practice using them • Having the students themselves think up useful codes

12. Text Codes •  – When you read something that makes you say…. “I knew that” or “ I predicted that” or “I saw that coming.” • X – When you run across something that contradicts what you know or expect. • ? – When you have a question, need clarification, or are unsure. •  – When you read something that seems important, vital, key, memorable, or powerful. • – When the reading really makes you see or visualize something. • _ When the student can make connections between the text, their life, the world, or others things they’ve read. • ZZZ – This is boring, I’m falling asleep.

13. Strategy # 3 – Ask Text Dependent Questions • 80 to 90% of the ELA Reading Standards in each grade level require text dependent analysis • One of the first and most important steps to implementing the ELA Common Core Standards is to focus on identifying, evaluating, and creating text-dependent questions • Deep Reading, the kind encouraged by the common core standards, asks students to “read like a detective”, looking closely for details • Rather than asking students questions about their prior knowledge or experiences, the standards expect students to struggle with text-dependent questions www.achievethecore.org/steal-these-tools/text-dependent-questions

14. Text Dependent Questions What Are they? • Specifically asks a question that can only be answered by referring explicitly back to the text • Does not rely on a student’s background knowledge • Does not rely on a student’s own experiences • Forces students to dig further into the text by asking them to re-read, re-visit, and search for meaning

15. Text Dependent Questions Good text dependent questions will linger over specific phrases and sentences to ensure careful comprehension of text. These questions will ask students to: • Analyze • Investigate • Probe • Examine • Question • Note Patterns • Consider

16. Steps To Creating Text Dependent Questions Step 1: Identify the Core Understandings and Key Ideas of the Text Step 2: Start Small to Build Confidence Step 3: Target Vocabulary and Text Structure Step 4: Tackle Tough Sections Head-On Step 5: Create Coherent Sequences of Text-Dependent Questions Step 6: Identify the Standards Step 7: Create the Culminating Assessment

17. Text Dependent Text Dependent Questions • Question why authors choose to begin and end when they do • Consider what the text leaves uncertain or unstated • Note and assess patterns of writing and what they achieve Not Not Text Dependent Why did the North fight the civil war Have you ever been to a funeral Why is equality an important value to promote

18. Let’s Write Some Text Dependent Questions PRODUCTIVE STRUGGLE

19. Next Steps • Decide how you will incorporate some of the strategies we discussed today for Close Reading • How will you increase stamina of text through the Close Reading process? • When conducting a Close Read, how will you incorporate the Speaking and Listening Standards?

20. Reflection – Write Around Respond to the following by using this content writing/reflection strategy: “Reading closely” means developing a deep understanding and precise interpretation of text based first and foremost on the words themselves.” Dr. McClennen’s Close Reading Guide • Write your response to the quote. • Pass your response to the person sitting next to you. • Conduct a silent discussion. Respond in writing to what you read. • Continue the process until everyone has a chance to write their response. • The original reader should should reread all responses. • Conduct a conversation with the group • Gather as a class or group to see where the silent conversation had taken all of the participants.