Embedded Files
The Struggle and Power of Close Reads
The Struggle and Power of Close Reads
It's time for you to read (reread may be a better word) the anchor text for your unit. You have all 18 of your highlighters ready to hit the page accompanied by countless sticky notes. You dive into the book and mark up everything that is ripe for unpacking and exploring. You find the perfect passage filled with literary devices and other amazing things that only English teachers would get giddy about, and you eagerly begin creating a close read activity for your students. You get to school the next morning and tell students what is on the agenda. Before you know it, your room is suddenly filled with:
-"Bruuuuhhhh..."
-"Is this a grade?".... "Nah, she never grades these"
-"Do we have to use a highlighter?"
Let's face it... most students despise close reads. They cannot see the purpose in them. More specifically, they cannot see the purpose of them when there is not a grade attached to them. I blame that fact on the structure of our education system, but that is a rant I'll save for another day. My students know that although I am continuously assessing them, I do not grade them on a majority of the work we do on a day-to-day basis. Do I grade their writers notebook? No. Do I grade their small group discussions? No. Do I grade their practice while learning a new skill? No. Do they complain about any of that? No. Do they complain about doing a close read that has previously never and will never be graded? Like I have never heard before! They think that it is too much work and too much of a hassle to look closely at something they have read and annotate it. As a teacher, I recognize the importance of close reads, but I can also see how they can become mundane. This is why I made it a point to address and fix this recurring issue in my classroom.
Recognizing the Mundane Pattern
Recognizing the Mundane Pattern
I'll admit it... a lot of my close reads resemble the one to the left. I will pull an excerpt from the text, we will do "I do, we do, you do", I'll ask students to focus on specific things as they annotate, we will talk about the entire sheet as a whole group, and then we will be done with it. I can see why they think it is meaningless, but I can also see the importance behind it. Since it is an important skill that I want my students to know how to utilize, I knew that I needed to think of a way to engage them with their close reads.
Recognizing the Need for Close Reads
Recognizing the Need for Close Reads
To the right, you will see one of the lesson plans from my Things Fall Apart unit. I knew that I wanted... no, NEEDED to do an activity with chapter fifteen. There were several excerpts I wanted students to focus on and mark up. This chapter contains the first interaction between one of the villages and the European colonizers, mentions generational differences, revisits Igbo customs, and further characterizes the main character Okonkwo. I knew that we had to look at this chapter as a class. What activity do you think my brain immediately drifted to? Yep. A close read. Based on the feedback I received from my students on a Google Form check-in, I knew that this assignment was not one they enjoyed. Many of them mentioned on the form that close reads were their least favorite type of assignment we do in class. With that knowledge, but also the desire to do a close read, I knew I had to figure out a way to engage my students while ensuring they unpack and analyze chapter 15.
Differentiating Our Typical Close Reads
Differentiating Our Typical Close Reads
After staying up for literal hours trying to differentiate our normal close reads, I finally put together something I wanted to try out. Keep in mind that my thought process while creating this was all over the place, so it is difficult to type out exactly what I did. I linked a video below of me briefly explaining what I did and WHY I did it. I would suggest watching the video and then reading the rest of this, but you have free will; do what you please. In order to break this down in the simplest way possible, I am going to use bullet points.
I first had to figure out what I wanted students to get out of this chapter. I reread the chapter and realized that there was a lot of valuable information students could get out of this chapter. After trying to pick the MOST important things, I thought, "You know what? We will unpack it all!". The chapter was only around four pages, but I then had to figure out how to unpack it all without overwhelming my students.
I decided to print off the entire chapter and split it into two sections: customs and colonization. Nothing fancy. No questions on the sheet. No breaking it off into excerpts. Just a quick copy from a pdf and a quick paste onto a Google Doc.
I then found myself stuck on what to do next, so I looked back at the feedback I received from my students regarding close reads. A few of them mentioned that we don't do anything with them, and that is why they feel irrelevant. So, I began focusing on how to make this close read feel more important. Here is what I came up with:
Engaging Introduction: Julie, my mentor teacher, is fantastic at tying in students' lives to lessons in small ways. She suggested that I do a quick, engaging introductory discussion before the close read. I showed students the commercial on the slide (linked below), and they discussed each of the questions as a small group before we talked about them as a whole group. This got students engaged and tied into the chapter they would soon be reading. I had never introduced a close read before, but this went extremely well and helped students get their energy up before starting the activity.
Freely Annotate: I typically give my students specific things to look for as they annotate. Since I was trying to remodel my typical close read, I switched this up. I read the first section of the chapter, then I let students annotate with no prompting from me for the first minute. Obviously, I knew some students would struggle with this, so after the first minute I switched to the "Look Out For..." slide. This slide helped students look for specific things to annotate. I repeated this same process for part two.
Creating Relevancy: My class enjoys having discussions. Even if they don't necessarily enjoy it, they are certainly used to them because of how collaborative our class is. After we got done annotating, I projected a Slide that grouped students together. The night before, I created four groups and paired students up based on how well they comprehend the text. For example, if student one was struggling with comprehension, then I made sure to pair him/her with student two who I knew had a good comprehension of the text. I allowed them to simply discuss what they annotated, their overall thoughts, and questions they may have for the first three minutes. Again, this allowed students to have more control over this assignment. After the first few minutes, I projected specific questions on the board that I wanted students to discuss. This was to ensure they were getting what I needed them to get out of the text.
video Gladys R 4_11_2023 6_48_42 PM.mp4
Overall, this activity went very well. It taught me how to use students feedback to differentiate the way they learn in the classroom. It felt like the students did not even realize that they were doing a close read! It made both the students and myself have an enjoyable class day without constant sighs and complaints.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse