Jack Lynch says that an English teacher’s heart will go pitter patter at the very thought of close reading. Today will be the very first day of introducing close reading to one set of my students and I am excited. Lynch calls close reading “close engagement with the language of the text” and he gives his take on how this might be accomplished.
Responding to a poetry prompt last night, I ended up writing something about close reading. The prompt was to begin and end the poem with the same word. Here is what I wrote:
Like snow under the microscope,
I say, hold the text to scrutiny and see
each flake break into shape. From a
distance, words on a page can be cold, snow like.
So my take on close reading is the equivalent of putting a text under the microscope and noticing details, patterns, structures that go into making a piece of text meaningful. Reading with a pencil in hand and annotating the text as we read is an important part of the process because in that act we begin to combine reading and writing. The ultimate goal is to be able to write out the close reading.
There is a selection of good, bad and ugly advice to be had online about how to go about this business but the most important advice in my opinion is to do it. Keep practicing till one gets the hang of it. Like driving, biking, swimming, playing an instrument (or any other matter of practical skill) close reading can only be learnt by doing it. And once learnt… what pleasure!
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