Close ReadingBased upon Text-Dependent Questions: Pathways to Close

and Critical Reading, Fisher and Frey, 2015

Creating a Close Reading

Use a short passage

Repeated Readings

• Ask students to read first. It’s OK if they struggle – this should be a complex piece of text for them.• If it’s a poem or something with complex words or structure, the

teacher may read the passage or a portion of the passage so students hear how it should be read, after they’ve read it on their own first.• Have students reread – annotating or “reading with a pencil.”• Set purpose with a big idea type (essential) question. “What type of

character would one need to be…?”

Creating a Close Reading

Use a short passage

Re-reading

Creating a Close Reading

Use a short passage

Re-reading

“Read with a pencil”

• Underline major points.• Star, asterisk, or other doodad in the

margin to be use sparingly to emphasize the 10-12 most important statements.

• Numbers in the margin to indicate a sequence of points made by the author in development of an argument.

• Circling of key words or phrases to serve much the same function as underlining.

• Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of the page to record questions (and perhaps answers) that a passage raises in your mind.

Creating a Close Reading

Use a short passage

Re-reading

“Read with a pencil”

Text-dependent questions

Questions•What does the text say? (Standards 1-3)•Start with literal level – who, what, where, when, why, how•Summarize•Think about theme•Story elements

Questions

• How does the text work? (Standards 4-6)• Vocabulary• Structure (problem/solution, cause/effect, sequential,

compare/contrast, description) • Author’s craft (genres/features of genres, mood/tone, role

of narrator, sentence length/rhythm, text features)• Literacy devices – flashback, foreshadowing, imagery,

irony, point of view, time lapse, hyperbole, figurative language, symbolism, etc.

Questions•What does the text mean? (Standards 7-9)• Inferential

• How the parts relate to the whole and vise versa.• Lexical – making an informed judgment about the

meaning of an ambiguous word, using grammatical, contextual, and structural cues• Predictive: forming a plausible hypothesis• Elaborative: Filling in unstated information

Determining whether the word read is a noun or verb, and whether it is past tense or present

tense.

Creating a Close Reading

Use a short passage

Re-reading

“Read with a pencil”

Text-dependent questions

Give students the chance to struggle a bit

Always…

•The student must use evidence from the text to support their thinking.