Falling in Love with Close Reading

Don't you love the interaction between students and text when they close read?  I started {somewhat} using close reading this year, but I wanted to read a little more into it to get a better idea of what I was doing and how to guide my students to reach the deep understanding I want them to.  This past summer, I read Close Reading of Informational Texts.

This book was a great introduction to what close reading is and what it looks like in informational texts.  It left me wanting a little more.  Especially for my fiction readers.

That's when I found Falling in Love with Close Reading.  Have you heard about this book?  Maybe you have even read it!  I'm picky about my professional reads, because I can't read just anything.  I get easily distracted and bored... quick like!  If I'm going to finish a professional read, it has to be something highly engaging and something I can use in my classroom and small group instruction.

To be honest, the first chapter was just an introduction.. a little hard to get through.  So, I'm going to talk mostly about chapter 2.

This was a great chapter about helping students find text evidence in fiction and informational text.  I'm not going to give too many details, but I'm going to share some "Aha" moments I had as I read.  The focus of this chapter was based around a chart/anchor chart to help guide students  to close read their texts.  You can download the picture below to download a .pdf version of both fiction & informational.

• As students read, have them write down things from #1 on your chart.
• What do the characters say/think/do?
• What are some relationships?
• What do you notice about the setting?
• What do you notice about the time period?
• Then, have students sort through their notes and highlight related facts by color or by placing them in categories.
• Students should ask themselves questions from #2 on your chart:
• Which details fit together?
• How do they fit together?
• Then, students should look at any patterns and develop new ideas based on those patterns.

• First, students read and record any facts, phrases, descriptions, photos, or graphics they do not understand.
• Then, have students sort through their notes and highlight related facts by color or by placing them in categories.
• Students should ask themselves questions from #2 on your chart:
• Which details fit together?
• How do they fit together?
• Then, students should find patterns with confusing information.  Then, understanding can begin to come.

1. The reason why the character __________ is because __________.
2. It seems like this character tends to __________.
3. My thinking about this character has changed because __________.
4. These characters are really different because ___________.
5. One issue I am noticing in this book is ___________.
6. I think the author is trying to teach me __________.
7. I think this because the author wrote __________.

• Students can use stickies to record facts
• Students can use highlighters/crayons to color-code common facts
• Patterns help us see what's important
• Start with simple examples to share as a introduction so you will have room to revise
• Close reading may not be necessary every time

Overall, I was pretty excited about this chapter!  Don't miss chapter 3!