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LAT Reading Lesson 4: Close-‐Reading Strategies © 2015 Standards Solution Holding, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Rationale The PARCC assessments require students to interact intensively with texts over a

sustained period of time. To be prepared for these tests, students need to develop close-reading skills to help them engage with the texts to unlock deeper meaning.

Goal To introduce students to close-reading strategies To provide students with time to practice close-reading strategies

Standards

CCSS RL.3.1: Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.

CCSS RL.3.2: Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.

CCSS RL.3.3: Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events

CCSS RL.3.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.

CCSS RL.3.5: Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.

Objectives Students will gain close-reading strategies that they will be able to use independently.

Materials

Literary text (photocopy that can be marked up by students) “Word Choice” worksheet (1 per group of 4 students)

Procedures

Begin class by asking students, “What is close-reading?” Discuss this concept with the class and see what they come up with. Explain that close-reading involves using reading strategies to reach a deeper understanding of a text. It’s like reading with a microscope, zooming in on the fine details.

Tell students that today they are going to learn ways to close-read a text. Distribute the text.

PARCC Literary Analysis Task

Grade 3 Reading Lesson 4: Close-Reading Strategies


Stress that you can’t close-read a text the first time you read it. Close-reading is what we do in subsequent readings, after we’re already familiar with what the text is basically about. A first reading is done for comprehension.

Read the text as a class or have students read independently. The rest of this lesson plan covers three close-reading strategies. Instructors should start with Strategy 1. Strategies 2 and 3 are not meant to be completed in order. Introducing and practicing one strategy could easily take up one class period. These strategies can be implemented over and over again each time a new text has been read by the class. Regular, frequent practice will enable students to use these strategies on their own.

Strategy 1: Chunking the text

This is a good strategy to introduce close-reading. It helps students to break the text into manageable pieces and not get overwhelmed by feeling they need to understand everything at once.

Procedure: 1. Students number the paragraphs. It’s best to place the number on the left margin in line

with the first sentence of the paragraph. 2. Have students re-read the text (alone or with a partner). 3. Direct students to place sequential paragraphs into groups based on related content (e.g.

this part describes the main character’s appearance). For example, group 1-3, 4-7, 8-9. The teacher gives students paragraph groupings. Eventually students should be encouraged to do this independently. There’s no right way to group, but students have to provide a reason for grouping the way they do.

4. In the left margin, summarize each paragraph in each chunk. 5. Select a literary element for the whole class to focus on. Have students re-read each

“chunk,” underline anything they find that relates to that element and in the right margin, take notes on what they’ve underlined.

Strategy 2: Pulling quotations and explaining what they mean

This strategy is an effective way to get students comfortable with the idea of working with direct quotations. In their essays, students will be expected to select, interpret, and justify textual evidence on their own.

The teacher can assign quotations or students can choose. Procedure:

1. Hold a class discussion of a passage. Check for comprehension with questions like “who are the characters?”, “what happens?”, “where does the action take place?” Before students can investigate the significance of a quotation they have to understand what is happening on the surface of the text.

2. Assign quotations to student pairs. 3. Ask students, “Now based on what you have learned from our discussion, how does

this quotation contribute to what happens in this passage?” 4. Allow student pairs to discuss and record their thoughts. Give the students question stems,

such as, “This shows that the character is…” 5. Bring the class together and ask students to share their findings.

Strategy 3: Word Choice

This is a good strategy for helping students think about why an author chooses the words that they do. Teachers should assign sentences to students the first few times they do this activity.


Eventually, students should pick their own, selecting passages that jump out at them. Good

sentences to use for this activity are descriptive; ones that, for example, depict setting or describe a specific thought or action of a character.

Procedure: 1. Divide students into small groups of no more than four students. Distribute one worksheet

per group and ask the group to elect a team scribe. 2. Assign each group a sentence from the passage. You can create sentence strips beforehand

and pass them out at this time. Have students write the sentence down. Remind them to use quotation marks.

3. Students rewrite the sentence in their own words, trying to make the sentence as simple as possible without changing the subject or action of the sentence. A way to do this is to eliminate adjectives and adverbs, or substitute vivid verbs for generic ones, like “ran” for “bolted.”

4. Students compare the sentences they wrote to the original. This comparison is meant to get students to think about how using a different word(s) can alter the meaning/intensity/impact of a sentence. They are not meant to compare the quality of their sentence to the author’s.

5. Give students time to discuss their sentences with their group. Circulate among groups and direct them to look at certain words if they get stuck.

Assessment Students should correctly apply the three close-reading strategies to the text in this exercise. Answers on the Word Choice worksheet will vary widely. Students’ work should display their

understanding of the word choice close-reading strategy, showing how word choice impacts sentence meaning and intensity.


from Box-Car Children Gertrude Chandler Warner

“SHELTER”

When Jess opened her eyes it must have been about ten o'clock in the morning. She sat up and looked all around her. She could see dimly the opening where they had come into the woods. She looked around to see that her family was still safely by her. Then she looked up at the sky. At first she thought it must still be night, and then she realized that the darkness was caused by an approaching storm.

"Whatever, whatever shall we do now?" demanded Jess of the air.

She got up and looked in every direction for shelter. She even walked quite a little way into the woods, and down a hill. And there she stood, not knowing what to do next.

"I shall have to wake Henry up," she said at last. "Only how I hate to!"

As she spoke she glanced into the forest, and her feet felt as if they were nailed to the ground. She could not stir. Faintly outlined among the trees, Jess saw an old freight or box car. Her first thought was one of fear; her second, hope for shelter. As she thought of shelter, her feet moved, and she stumbled toward it.

It really was a freight car. She felt of it. It stood on rusty broken rails which were nearly covered with dead leaves. Then the thunder cracked overhead. Jess came to her usual senses and started back for Henry, flying like the wind. He was awake, looking anxiously overhead. He had not noticed that Jess was missing.

"Come!" panted Jess. "I've found a place! Hurry! hurry!"

Henry did not stop to ask questions. He picked up Benny, telling Violet to gather up the hay. And then they ran headlong through the thick underbrush in Jess' wake, seeing their way only too well by the sharp flashes of lightning.

"It's beginning to sprinkle!" gasped Henry.

"We'll get there, all right," Jess shouted back. "It's not far. Be all ready to help me open the door when we get there!"

By sheer good fortune a big tree stump stood under the door of the freight car, or the children never could have opened it. As it was, Jess sprang on the stump and Henry, pausing to lay Benny down, did likewise. Together they rolled back the heavy door about a foot.

"That's enough," panted Jess. "I'll get in, and you hand Benny up to me."

"No," said Henry quietly. "I must see first if any one is in there."

"It will rain!" protested Jess. "Nothing will hurt me."

But she knew it was useless to argue with Henry, so she hastily groped in the bag for the matches and handed them to her brother. It must be confessed that Jess held her breath while Henry struck one and peered about inside the car.

"All's well!" he reported. "Come in, everybody!"


Thinking about Word Choice

Write the author’s sentence in the space below: Rewrite the sentence in your own words. Make it as simple as possible without changing the literal meaning of the sentence. Think about the author’s original sentence and your version of it. How do the author’s words change the sentence? Discuss this with your group and jot down your ideas in the space below. Give examples of how adding or removing an adjective or adverb can change the sentence. How does the tone of the sentence change based on the words used? Give an example.

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