Kuunari

A year ago I read the book A Close Look at Close Reading: Teaching Students to Analyze Complex Texts, Grades K-5 by Barbara Moss, Diane Lapp, and Maria Grant. This book was disappointing, never naming race or rarely discussing multilingual learners. It did explain what close reading is clearly, and as a tool, it has it’s place in a complete language arts classroom. I’ll be posting the essays for the next 11 weeks on Tuesday.

Close reading is an important activities and provides space for students to develop a number of important skills. There are a number of components of Close Reading that might be difficult to implement, as it forces the teacher to rethink how reading should be implemented. The authors of the book A Close Look at Close Reading, Grades K-5 did not mitigate the problem that the texts recommended by the Common Core are dominated by white authors and white protagonists by including texts by and about people of color.

When close reading is implemented in a classroom, the teacher must provide a more varied perspective both in content and authorship for their students. Close reading is not a unique program, but instead an outgrowth and improvement of the traditional short passage and question worksheets and reading textbooks utilized for many years in schools. 

Close reading has many advantages for students. It teaches students how to read a text closely and how to draw out meaning from a text that might be challenging. There are many times both in school and in real life when people need to be able to comprehend challenging texts and close reading helps students to prepare for it. Close reading requires teachers to find texts across disciplines, helping students understand how to read texts for a variety of purposes. It helps students understand the value and purpose for rereading, something students are typically resistant to do.

It also can be more engaging, as it encourages teachers to pick shorter, albeit complex, texts for the students to read. Students want to read and discuss interesting, grade level topics, but for many students, particularly those behind in their reading, they struggle to read longer texts that are at their grade level. By picking a shorter text, discussions can include more voices than traditional reading instruction might. Close reading teaches students how to stick with a text, even when it is challenging. Grit has become a buzzword in education as of late, but students must be given challenges that are hard but that they are able to overcome. 

There can be a number of issues with implementing close reading. First, for some teachers, this style of activity will be very different from their typical style of teaching. There were a couple of issues with the model as presented in the book A Close Look at Close Reading, Grades K-5. First, the authors presented a very dry, disengaging form of close reading that keeps the teacher at the center of the lesson. Without time to teach and allow students to drive the questions that are part of close reading, students will wait for the teacher’s next questions to drive what meaning they try to get out of the text.

Allowing the students natural inquiry to be a partner in the lesson ensures that students are more engaged and learn how to make their own meaning out of text. It is important that they are taught how to ask deep, meaningful questions. Second, the authors failed to identify the overwhelmingly white nature of the texts that they were suggesting. A teacher must both present texts that represent perspectives present in their classroom and in their community. There are countless authors of color who are writing texts that are of equal or greater complexity than the ones that the authors mention. Also, encouraging students to learn how to closely read texts from perspectives that are different from their own are vital to create a populace able to communicate and understand each other. 

Close reading grows out of the traditional passages and questions on worksheets that are parts of so many reading, science, and social studies curriculums. While close reading, is not unique it is an improvement over those activities. Those activities lack a number of features that close reading has. Close reading utilizes authentic texts rather than texts created for textbooks or workbooks. Students do not automatically know how to read a passage closely to gather information.

Many of those traditional activities rarely supported the student in learning how to do the work of dissecting and comprehending complex texts. Instead, that skill must be taught. The questions that are asked of the students are more responsive and authentic in a close reading activity. A teacher using formative assessments throughout their lesson and between lessons will adapt the questions they ask to both meet the requirement of the standards and make the lessons engaging for the students. Close reading is a key component of any quality reading instruction.