Close Reading

Close Reading
By: Carter Davis


Close reading is thoughtful, critical analysis of a text that focuses on significant details or patterns in order to develop a deep, precise understanding of the text's form, craft, meanings, etc. It is a key requirement of the Common Core State Standards and directs the reader's attention to the text itself.

Going into this project I did not have a single idea what close reading was. Annotation to me was just something that teachers gave as busy work for us to do. Throughout the years I would just scribble down information and not pay attention to it. When I first saw the paper by Swift I had no idea what to do. I read through the article fast and did not grasp it so I decided to try it again. This time I took my time and actually looked up words and tried to find things that were important to the story line. Finally it hit me why close reading is so important.

After taking my time to read through the article I picked up on things that I passed over when I was reading through it fast. This made the annotation a breeze and gave me a lot to write about. It also gave me more insight on the article and I was more knowledgeable. The reap strategy helped me a lot. Reap meaning (R-read text in own words, E-encode the text by using your own words, A-annotated by writing down the meaning of phrases and content in them, and P-ponder what you read.) Even though to some these might sound basic and not worth your time it is incredible how it helped me. Writing down the content of a section would help me find my place and pick back up and also give me an idea of what content was in that section.

One thing that I never thought about when annotating was pondering, actually sitting back and thinking about what you just read. I believe that close reading is very important to me in this way. It taught me to stop for a minute contrary to my usual skimming of the content and writing down the easiest and most basic response. When I actually took the time to think about what I had just read it made more sense to me (a light bulb went off in my head.) What I would suggest to anyone scared of annotating would to use the reap method. Coming from someone who is not very experienced in annotation it helped me a lot. For example, when reading this article pick out the main points of it and mark it. You will find that further down in your annotation, you can look up and see a brief explanation of the content and it will help you. 

If you do not take anything away from this blog post I would suggest two things. First of all slow down, it's not a race to see who can finish first take your time and really soak in the text. Second of all and the most IMPORTANT write notes off in the side.  If you just underline and circle it you will not get anything from it you always need notes that will help you understand why this information is important and why it will help benefit you