Close Reading
An English Initiative at Ardrey Kell
A foreword composed by Tara Suess- graduate of Ardrey Kell, corporate professional, blogger, and aspiring writer
...on her thoughts toward the significance of reading in relation to writing:
"I’ve learned that in order to propel yourself as a writer, you must familiarize yourself with the material. It’s not an option, it’s a necessity. You need to study the works of others- both the great, acclaimed works and the quieter, overlooked ones. Read something for the first time, and then read it again more carefully. Go through texts with a fine tooth comb and mark them up unabashedly. Highlight, underline, and scribble barely legible notes in the margins, as if it’s a study guide to the most important exam of your life. Essentially, it is. Act as a sponge and soak up the author’s diction, voice, and style. Notice sentence structure, nuances, vivid descriptions. There is incredible beauty within words if you are attune to it. And if you allow yourself to become attune to it, revel in it, and soak up all the beauty, you will thrive."
Close reading is developing a deeper understanding of a text beyond solely the subject and topic. Close reading demands a strong command of the author's point of view, purpose, and attitude toward the subject. To develop this understanding, good readers must recognize and analyze the choices which contribute to the point of view and purpose: diction, repetition, imagery, figurative language, sentence patterns, and rhetorical strategies.
The most significant tool to close reading is the skill of annotation and re-reading a text. You will find general keys to annotation below, and then you will find the close reading initiatives for the class.
...on her thoughts toward the significance of reading in relation to writing:
"I’ve learned that in order to propel yourself as a writer, you must familiarize yourself with the material. It’s not an option, it’s a necessity. You need to study the works of others- both the great, acclaimed works and the quieter, overlooked ones. Read something for the first time, and then read it again more carefully. Go through texts with a fine tooth comb and mark them up unabashedly. Highlight, underline, and scribble barely legible notes in the margins, as if it’s a study guide to the most important exam of your life. Essentially, it is. Act as a sponge and soak up the author’s diction, voice, and style. Notice sentence structure, nuances, vivid descriptions. There is incredible beauty within words if you are attune to it. And if you allow yourself to become attune to it, revel in it, and soak up all the beauty, you will thrive."
Close reading is developing a deeper understanding of a text beyond solely the subject and topic. Close reading demands a strong command of the author's point of view, purpose, and attitude toward the subject. To develop this understanding, good readers must recognize and analyze the choices which contribute to the point of view and purpose: diction, repetition, imagery, figurative language, sentence patterns, and rhetorical strategies.
The most significant tool to close reading is the skill of annotation and re-reading a text. You will find general keys to annotation below, and then you will find the close reading initiatives for the class.
Close Reading Process
READING INFORMATIONAL (RI)
Ø Key Ideas and Details RI1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. RI2: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. RI3: Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them. Ø Craft and Structure RI4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language of a court opinion differs from that of a newspaper). RI5: Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of a text (e.g., a section or chapter). RI6: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose. |
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General Annotation Guidelines
Close Reading Sample: "Wolves" general annotation
My general annotation of "Wolves" was largely completed by determining the author's purpose and organizing detailed information about two different wolves. If the title and concentration of the passage were "wolves," then I spent time gathering and re-organizing information. I'm glad I did. Two hours after I annotated this piece, I can still distinguish the difference between a gray wolf and red wolf in pounds and size! Cool!
Now, the purpose of the author was to inform the reader about wolves, yes, but it was also clearly to dispel the common and traditional perception of the wolf as aggressive and dangerous. I thought that the repetitive use of "dog" was clever rhetoric. My annotations reflect these thoughts. The dog comparison would have been more applicable with the red wolf because of the close size comparison, so why didn't the author use "dog" to convince the reader again? Simple. Red wolves are extinct in the wild. People have no reason to fear them. People are not threatened by the red wolf. Smart author.
Many believe that the facts typically speak for themselves; however, professional authors typically author texts for maximum impact and use rhetorical techniques and strategies to do more than just offer facts. Such is the case with this piece despite its brevity.
Now, I have NOT and will NOT complete the "Close Reading" objectives for this piece, but I can't give you everything....
Now, the purpose of the author was to inform the reader about wolves, yes, but it was also clearly to dispel the common and traditional perception of the wolf as aggressive and dangerous. I thought that the repetitive use of "dog" was clever rhetoric. My annotations reflect these thoughts. The dog comparison would have been more applicable with the red wolf because of the close size comparison, so why didn't the author use "dog" to convince the reader again? Simple. Red wolves are extinct in the wild. People have no reason to fear them. People are not threatened by the red wolf. Smart author.
Many believe that the facts typically speak for themselves; however, professional authors typically author texts for maximum impact and use rhetorical techniques and strategies to do more than just offer facts. Such is the case with this piece despite its brevity.
Now, I have NOT and will NOT complete the "Close Reading" objectives for this piece, but I can't give you everything....
A Final Word
This terrific essay called "The Pleasure of Books," in which Phelps discusses the value of reading, illustrates one significant reason to close read and one method (highlighted in red, respectively).
William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943) was an American educator, literary critic and author. He served as a professor of English at Yale University from 1901 to 1933.
The habit of reading is one of the greatest resources of mankind; and we enjoy reading books that belong to us much more than if they are borrowed. A borrowed book is like a guest in the house; it must be treated with punctiliousness, with a certain considerate formality. You must see that it sustains no damage; it must not suffer while under your roof. You cannot leave it carelessly, you cannot mark it, you cannot turn down the pages, you cannot use it familiarly. And then, some day, although this is seldom done, you really ought to return it.
But your own books belong to you; you treat them with that affectionate intimacy that annihilates formality. Books are for use, not for show; you should own no book that you are afraid to mark up, or afraid to place on the table, wide open and face down. A good reason for marking favorite passages in books is that this practice enables you to remember more easily the significant sayings, to refer to them quickly, and then in later years, it is like visiting a forest where you once blazed a trail. You have the pleasure of going over the old ground, and recalling both the intellectual scenery and your own earlier self.
Everyone should begin collecting a private library in youth; the instinct of private property, which is fundamental in human beings, can here be cultivated with every advantage and no evils. One should have one's own bookshelves, which should not have doors, glass windows, or keys; they should be free and accessible to the hand as well as to the eye. The best of mural decorations is books; they are more varied in color and appearance than any wallpaper, they are more attractive in design, and they have the prime advantage of being separate personalities, so that if you sit alone in the room in the firelight, you are surrounded with intimate friends. The knowledge that they are there in plain view is both stimulating and refreshing. You do not have to read them all. Most of my indoor life is spent in a room containing six thousand books; and I have a stock answer to the invariable question that comes from strangers.
"Have you read all of these books?"
"Some of them twice." This reply is both true and unexpected.
There are of course no friends like living, breathing, corporeal men and women; my devotion to reading has never made me a recluse. How could it? Books are of the people, by the people, for the people. Literature is the immortal part of history; it is the best and most enduring part of personality. But book-friends have this advantage over living friends; you can enjoy the most truly aristocratic society in the world whenever you want it. The great dead are beyond our physical reach, and the great living are usually almost as inaccessible; as for our personal friends and acquaintances, we cannot always see them. Perchance they are asleep, or away on a journey. But in a private library, you can at any moment converse with Socrates or Shakespeare or Carlyle or Dumas or Dickens or Shaw or Barrie or Galsworthy. And there is no doubt that in these books you see these men at their best. They wrote for you. They "laid themselves out," they did their ultimate best to entertain you, to make a favorable impression. You are necessary to them as an audience is to an actor; only instead of seeing them masked, you look into their innermost heart of heart.
William Lyon Phelps - 1933
William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943) was an American educator, literary critic and author. He served as a professor of English at Yale University from 1901 to 1933.
The habit of reading is one of the greatest resources of mankind; and we enjoy reading books that belong to us much more than if they are borrowed. A borrowed book is like a guest in the house; it must be treated with punctiliousness, with a certain considerate formality. You must see that it sustains no damage; it must not suffer while under your roof. You cannot leave it carelessly, you cannot mark it, you cannot turn down the pages, you cannot use it familiarly. And then, some day, although this is seldom done, you really ought to return it.
But your own books belong to you; you treat them with that affectionate intimacy that annihilates formality. Books are for use, not for show; you should own no book that you are afraid to mark up, or afraid to place on the table, wide open and face down. A good reason for marking favorite passages in books is that this practice enables you to remember more easily the significant sayings, to refer to them quickly, and then in later years, it is like visiting a forest where you once blazed a trail. You have the pleasure of going over the old ground, and recalling both the intellectual scenery and your own earlier self.
Everyone should begin collecting a private library in youth; the instinct of private property, which is fundamental in human beings, can here be cultivated with every advantage and no evils. One should have one's own bookshelves, which should not have doors, glass windows, or keys; they should be free and accessible to the hand as well as to the eye. The best of mural decorations is books; they are more varied in color and appearance than any wallpaper, they are more attractive in design, and they have the prime advantage of being separate personalities, so that if you sit alone in the room in the firelight, you are surrounded with intimate friends. The knowledge that they are there in plain view is both stimulating and refreshing. You do not have to read them all. Most of my indoor life is spent in a room containing six thousand books; and I have a stock answer to the invariable question that comes from strangers.
"Have you read all of these books?"
"Some of them twice." This reply is both true and unexpected.
There are of course no friends like living, breathing, corporeal men and women; my devotion to reading has never made me a recluse. How could it? Books are of the people, by the people, for the people. Literature is the immortal part of history; it is the best and most enduring part of personality. But book-friends have this advantage over living friends; you can enjoy the most truly aristocratic society in the world whenever you want it. The great dead are beyond our physical reach, and the great living are usually almost as inaccessible; as for our personal friends and acquaintances, we cannot always see them. Perchance they are asleep, or away on a journey. But in a private library, you can at any moment converse with Socrates or Shakespeare or Carlyle or Dumas or Dickens or Shaw or Barrie or Galsworthy. And there is no doubt that in these books you see these men at their best. They wrote for you. They "laid themselves out," they did their ultimate best to entertain you, to make a favorable impression. You are necessary to them as an audience is to an actor; only instead of seeing them masked, you look into their innermost heart of heart.
William Lyon Phelps - 1933