Practicing+A+Close+Reading

When performing a close reading, the reader is examining the text in great detail. It is a process often conducted on passages of particular significance. These passages can:


 * Provide significant insight into a character
 * Illuminate a thematic concept
 * Explain a key concept
 * Define an important term
 * Connect one section of a text to another

Close reading allows the reader to dissect a particular passage, examine its language and meaning, and develop a deeper understanding of the author's intent and how passage interact with another to connect a text as a whole.

As teachers, we are all familiar with the process of close reading, although we may not know, exactly, how to help our students conduct their own close reading. The purpose of this exercise to walk through the steps of conducting a close reading and to give you a structure to follow when walking your students through this process. For our close reading we will be working with passages from Mary Shelley's novel, //Frankenstein//.

Step 1: Close Reading for the First Time

The first time we read a text, we read to move through the work. Sometimes we are struck by something but, in the interest of progress, we keep moving forward. Our students are no different. So, when we want our students to perform a close reading, we need to nudge them in the right direction. The first step down this path to provide them with a passage of importance. Please read this passage from //Frankenstein//.

"There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically industrious — painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and labour — but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited regions I am about to explore." Letter 2