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"To read a text closely one must only rely on the words in the text and their relationships to each other. They don't turn to other sources. Close readers learn to notice metaphors or symbols, interesting juxtapositions of information, ambiguities, and the like (clues authors might have left behind to reveal the text meaning to those who read closely).             The Common Core State Standards require that we teach students to be close readers-to not only grasp the literal and inferential meanings of a text, but to understand how an author's word choices and structures convey higher-level meanings; how to figure out the subtler aspects of a text.             As such, close reading only makes sense is if texts have deeper meanings. If there aren't deeper meanings requiring such text analysis, then close reading would have no value. That means close reading requires certain kinds of text complexity."

"The goal of any close reading is the following: an ability to understand the general content of a text even when you don't understand every word or concept in it. an ability to spot techniques that writers use to get their ideas and feelings across and to explain how they work. an ability to judge whether techniques the writer has used succeed or fail and an ability to compare and contrast the successes and failures of different writers' techniques. Remember-when doing a close reading, the goal is to closely analyze the material and explain why details are significant. Therefore, close reading does not try to summarize the author's main points, rather, it focuses on "picking apart" and closely looking at the what the author makes his/her argument, why is it interesting, etc. Here are a few of the helpful questions to consider in close reading, from the handout by  Kip Wheeler, a college English professor:"

"Without a repertoire of reading strategies that can be applied to any text, students are being shortchanged in their education. In order to teach students to read effectively, teachers must be sure that they are not simply suppliers of information on a particular text but also instructors of techniques to build reading skills. Here are some ideas on how to incorporate reading skills lessons into a curriculum."

"I had tried everything from the traditional book report style assessment to more creative movie trailers, but I didn't feel like they accomplished what I wanted from a silent sustained reading assessment. It wasn't until I went to a book club meeting with some friends that inspiration struck. At our book club meetings we ate food, drank wine, and talked about literature for hours. Why couldn't our SSR assessment be more like that? (Sans the wine, of course.) I thought about what inspired me to read my book club books and the answer was that I really enjoyed that evening of food, conversation, and friends. So, I decided to design a book club style chat assessment for our silent sustained reading. The goal was to get my students having conversations about their various books. Ultimately, I hoped they would turn each other on to titles they had read and enjoyed. Below is a brief overview of the assignment. I've also included a link to a Google document with a detailed explanation of the assignment for any teacher interested in using it!"

A newly released study by the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers (ALSCW) strongly suggests that two factors-a fragmented English curriculum and a neglect of close reading-may explain why the reading skills of American high school students have shown little or no improvement in several decades despite substantial increases in funds for elementary and secondary education by federal and state governments. Three major findings: (1) The content of the literature and reading curriculum for students in standard or honors courses is no longer traditional or uniform in any consistent way.  (2) The works teachers assign generally do not increase in difficulty from grade 9 to grade 11. (3) Teachers do not favor close, analytical readings of assigned works. T 

"It's hard for kids to write more and well because collectively I don't think we are as intentional about building student writing stamina as we are about building their reading stamina. It's also hard for teachers because the more they write the more we have to read.  That takes time and it feels overwhelming. While these are all very real and valid reasons, I'm still left with an itch I can't ignore called hypocrisy.  If I believe readers need to read more to become better readers, the same has to be true for writing.  So why do my expectations differ?  Why do I encourage my kids to read more to get better at reading, but not write more to get better at writing?"

"The key to getting kids to read deeply in any format is to have them engage with the text in meaningful ways. In the digital space, that means disrupting a pattern of skipping around, writing short chats and getting lost down the rabbit hole of the internet. It means teaching kids ways to break down a complex text, find key ideas, organize them and defend them. Practicing those skills in class can be time-consuming, but it also builds good digital reading habits that hopefully become second nature. "The goal in almost all the strategies is to slow the kids down so they are focusing on this text," Hess said. "Number two is to engage them in an active way with the text, and number three you want to encourage oral discourse. And number four you want them to do some reflection." Those steps should sound familiar to teachers because they are important for any kind of reading for comprehension and analysis. The trick for teachers is to learn how to transfer these processes into the digital space and push them even further."

"Students almost universally hate close reading, and they rarely wind up understanding it anyway. Forced to pick out meaning in passages they don't fully grasp to begin with, they begin to get the idea that English class is about simply making things up and constructing increasingly circuitous arguments by way of support. So what would happen if we ditched this sacred teaching technique? For starters, we could help students read more. Speeding things up might make it easier to grasp--and appreciate--the overall arc of a book, while allowing the opportunity for real connection with the characters and plot. You can't do that at the pace of a chapter a week. Furthermore, aiming for fifteen books a year, rather than five, might expose the students to more good literature . If the goal of an English class is to improve students' grasp of language, introduce them to great literature, and--hopefully--get students excited, then there's really no downside to this approach. If a few students really want to do close reading, they can do it as an elective or jump in head first in college. Otherwise, let's chuck the concept. We gain nothing by teaching kids to hate books--and hate them s-l-o-w-l-y. "

"The Scholastic Kids & Family Reading ReportTM: Fifth Edition is out and offers a snapshot of where young people are when it comes to reading independently. Here are some of the findings of a nationally representative survey conducted last fall by Scholastic in conjunction with YouGov. Some of the results are surprising, including the fact that kids prefer to read books in print. Following the findings is an analysis of what they mean for parents and teachers:"

""They're all great readers," she said, noting that nearly 90 percent are reading at grade level. "But I have a hard time getting them to engage with the text, read for understanding and deeper meaning. I have a hard time getting them to read and think and write critically about fiction and nonfiction alike.""

"For years, we've thought that the answer to boosting adolescent reading comprehension lay in building students' vocabulary. Teens often struggle with the jargon and advanced terminology they encounter as they move into middle and high school, so educators have designed curricula and interventions that explicitly teach these complex words. But these strategies aren't always fully effective, according to literacy researcher Paola Uccelli. As she writes, many of these interventions have yielded "significant growth in vocabulary knowledge yet only modest gains in reading comprehension." Too many teens still struggle to understand assigned texts. Uccelli's research explores a new approach. By focusing on how words connect in academic texts - and by recognizing that this connecting language is a possible source of difficulty for adolescent readers - teachers may be better able to equip middle and high school students with the tools to comprehend the texts they're reading for higher-order learning. Her work identifies a set of language features that are common in academic text but rare in informal spoken language. She's found that many of the most common language features of middle school texts are unknown to large proportions of students, even by eighth grade. "

"Whatever you're consuming-even a movie that seems to require no thought-pay attention, and take notes. For Scott, there's no real difference between reading or watching for work and for pleasure. "I can't read without a pencil or pen in hand, whatever I'm reading," he says. "I have to have something to make notes in the margin or underline or scribble with. … I can't just like what I like, or not like what I don't like, without thinking, 'Why?' -Which is kind of where criticism starts.""

In celebration of Read Across America Day, and of World Read-Aloud Day, both in early March, we offer engaging, short Times essays, articles, op-eds and humor pieces on a range of topics for teachers, parents or students to read aloud. Many of our picks are pieces that someone on the Learning Network staff has field-tested with real, live middle and high school students over the years

"Remember-when doing a close reading, the goal is to closely analyze the material and explain why details are significant. Therefore, close reading does not try to summarize the author's main points, rather, it focuses on "picking apart" and closely looking at the what the author makes his/her argument, why is it interesting, etc. Here are a few of the helpful questions to consider in close reading, from the handout by  Kip Wheeler, a college English professor:"

"Closely reading any text, whether written or visual, requires that students proceed more slowly and methodically, noticing details, making connections and asking questions. This takes practice. But it certainly helps when students want to read the text. We've selected 10 photos from The Times that we've used previously in our weekly "What's Going On in This Picture?" and that have already successfully caught students' and teachers' attention. These are some of our most popular images - ones that may make viewers say "huh?" on first glance, but that spark enough curiosity to make them want to dig deeper. Below, we offer ideas from students and teachers who have engaged with these images for ways to use them, or images like them, to teach close reading and visual thinking skills."

"Be visual and conversational. Be concrete, make your reader see and stop trying to impress. Beware "the curse of knowledge." Have someone read your work and tell you if it makes sense. Your own brain cannot be trusted. Don't bury the lead. Clarity beats suspense. If they don't know what it's about they can't follow along. You don't have to play by the rules, but try. If you play it straight 99% of the time, that 1% will really shine. Read Read Read. The English language is too complex to learn from one book. Never stop learning. Good writing means revising. Never hit "send" or "print" without reviewing your work - preferably multiple times."

This is the list that Kathy Dittirch sent out. Some interesting pairings here. "The classics tend to dominate English teachers' plans, and throughout grade school, high school and college you're often stuck reading the same ol' tomes off the same ol' lists. So, let's fix that. The writers at HuffPost Culture teamed up to create an alternative back-to-school reading list, in which books like The Giver and Heart of Darkness are replaced with works like On Such A Full Sea and The World and Me."

"In the second half of the year, my writing course shifts to a more focused study of argument. We read and analyze several mentor texts together as a class, starting with speeches and letters, including an in-depth analysis of the classic  "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. (this year, I also paired King's text with "The Future Needs Us" by Rebecca Solnit and the introduction from Writings on the Wall by Kareem Abdul Jabbar). But the key to teaching students how to analyze argument-particularly in today's media rich world-is to make the time and space for students to take what they have learned and apply it independently. (In fact, that's true when you teach anything.) So this year, I changed up my argument unit a bit to include a two-week workshop period in which students would: Read several arguments from a variety of media (written, visual, auditory, film); Analyze the arguments for their line of reasoning; Write their own original essay which defends, challenges, or qualifies a claim made by one (or more) of the arguments they studied."

"The excerpt below is from the book "Building a Community of Self-Motivated Learners: Strategies to Help Students Thrive in School and Beyond," by Larry Ferlazzo. This excerpt is from the chapter entitled "I Still Want to Know: How Can You Get Students More Interested in Reading and Writing?"