What’s in a Word? Employing Close Reading to Enhance Analytical Skills by Leilya A. Pitre

What’s in a Word? Employing Close Reading to Enhance Analytical Skills 

Perhaps, every English teacher’s dream is to walk into the classroom full of students who desire to read, write, and passionately discuss literature. However, that this is not the case most of the time. On the contrary, often a good number of students dislike reading and discussions and dread analyzing and writing. What can we do to change the situation? How can we spark teenagers’ interest in things we, English teachers, find pleasurable, amusing, or educative?  

The answers may sound simple: we have to teach them to read and think. We want them to read and pay attention to words and how these words create meaning for understanding bigger ideas, themes, characters, and their choices. These are some fundamental skills, and without them, learning is tough, frightful, and often ineffective. How often do we plan a lesson with an interesting discussion that would showcase our students’ mastery of thinking and analytical skills, but when we begin the lesson, we realize it is not going the way we anticipated? Something just doesn’t work.  

What has to be understood though is that these interpretive skills cannot be taught in one day; their mastery requires consistent, day-to-day reinforcement. The great “dog and pony show” some teachers are able to pull out when a principal walks into the classroom unannounced or brings outside observers from the school board is in fact a result of such an unswerving, regular work. We have to begin with the basics – with reading.  

Choice of a Literary Text  

First of all, to organize an effective study and positive learning experiences, selecting an appropriate literary text which is relevant and relatable to students is one of the keys of effective learning. Teachers and educators know this and based on the accessibility of resources make such choices. In many of the school districts across the country, curriculum specialists create detailed guidebooks with specific text selections already made for teachers. There is no much flexibility in such approach because schools acquire learning materials and resources based on the prescribed curriculum.  

For other schools, situation might be more favorable, and teachers may include their favorite literature whether it is comprised from classic or contemporary titles. In recent years, more often scholars suggest to bring into the ELA classroom young adult literature (YAL) as a supplement or addition to canon emphasizing advantageous nature of YA novels as students are able to draw connections to characters’ lives, experiences, achievements, and struggles. Whatever text you choose, be enthusiastic about teaching it; otherwise, you lose, and your students do too.  

Let’s say, the appropriate text is selected, and the introductory lesson shows that most of the students in class will enjoy reading it. For the purpose of this blog, I choose Gayle Forman’s YA novel I Have Lost My Way (2018). This novel might fit well for 11^th or 12^th grade class of students.  The novel tells a story of three young adults who, quite literally, stumble upon each other. Freya, a talented singer on the verge of becoming a celebrity suddenly loses her voice. Harun, a young, American-born, gay man of Pakistani descent with a very religious parents, wants to run away from his pain leaving behind family and friends. Nathaniel, a white, poor boy, who had just lost his father and grandmother, comes to New York City with a desperate plot of ending it all. These three strangers brought together by an incident are all struggling with personal internal and external challenges; each one of them experiences an emotional and/or physical loss, and each one learns how to cope with it and rediscover hope.   

The novel seems like a great choice: it has a possibility to discuss several universal themes, such as love, friendship, loss, hope, and an identity search as an overarching theme. It features young adults, whose experiences are realistic and might be similar to the students’ experiences in the classroom. Another advantage of this text is in representation of the diverse adolescents: they belong to different cultural, racial, and socio-economic groups and represent female and male protagonists. These literary heroes mirror the classroom make-up in many regions of our country.  

We have a literary text, and it seems like a great start. What’s next? Next, we have to respond to the text beginning with the actual reading and then thinking, discussions, analysis, and writing. Below I will explain a few close reading procedures that work well and create a solid basis for further tasks and projects.  

Close Reading Activities 

Responding to the text is more efficient when the text itself is actively employed, and that is why I favor close reading exercises. They help students directly interact with the text, discussing the main characters’ struggles, pain, and growth. There are at least three ways I use the close reading approach—reading selected passages without a follow-up discussion; reading with an immediate discussion; and close reading combined with metacognitive journaling. It doesn’t mean that teachers have to use close reading strategies with every single text they read or they have to use all three in one teaching unit. It depends on the students’ needs, text at hand, and learning purpose. 

Sharing Favorite Passages 

After reading the first part of the novel consisting of four chapters, teachers may assign students to choose three or four passages they consider important for understanding characters and their immediate struggles. These can also be students’ favorite passages because of the way they are written or the words and ideas/thoughts they express. When I say to choose a passage, I mean a brief quote—a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph at the most.  

Once the passages are selected, students are grouped in teams of three or four and read their passages taking turns. During this first exchange of passages, students do not discuss them, but listen and take in the words. Students in groups may take a note about the quote they liked, and for this reason, any time I ask students’ to write out a quote, I require the page number. It will come handy later, when students are working on a character analysis or an essay. These quotes become their textual evidence. Table 1 presents a few examples of possible passages for this activity.  

Table 1. Possible Passages for Sharing  

Page #	Selected Passages
p. 3	Freya: Maybe someone would’ve told her it didn’t matter if she could sing. They’d still love her. But she knows … Love is conditional. Everything is.
p. 6	Freya: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If she doesn’t go to Hayden’s office, he can’t fire her. And if he can’t fire her, her career isn’t over. And if her career isn’t over, people will still love her. Right?
p. 13	Harun: “His older brother Said started middle school on the day 9/11 happened, and after that he began calling himself Steve and refusing to attend mosque. By the time Harun stopped going, the battle had already been lost. Or won. Depending on how you looked at it.”
p. 19-20	Nathaniel: “I have lost my way,” he says to the stream of pedestrians. Can anyone tell me where the A train is?”      But they keep moving, a million-limb organism rather than individual people, and then there’s Nathaniel, the amputee.
p.31	Freya: “I don’t know what’s with her,” I heard my mother tell Sabrina. “Or how to snap her out of it.” That was my father’s job. He was the one who sat with me when I was sick or scared. He was the one who didn’t ask for explanations when sometimes I was just so overcome with emotions I didn’t know what to do. “Sing what you can’t say, Freaulai,” he would say.

This brief exercise helps students share, listen, and think about each of the quotes they hear noticing their meaning and/or significance. It works better at the end of class, so students are left thinking about the passages they shared with each other. Some may want to reread them at home. After students complete reading the passages in their group, I usually ask them to think about the passage they found the most striking and write their reaction to it for homework. Teachers may also ask students to write an exit ticket mentioning the passage of their or the classmate’s choice that they found interesting, profound, important, and etc.   

A Lightning Round Activity 

The second close reading activity follows the different protocol.  Students are still to choose three or four passages or quotes from the text. The teacher may also choose several passages for each group in case students are not prepared. In each group, Student 1 reads a passage, and Student 2 next to him or her responds with a comment, reaction, or question within 30 seconds. I call it A Lightning Round activity (Pitre & Bickmore, 2018) which teaches students to provide an immediate reaction to what is read.  

Ideally, after Student 2 responds to the first quote, this Student 2 reads his or her excerpt, and Student 3 responds. After Student 4 reads the passage, and Student 1 responds, the group chooses the passage that is most thought-provoking. After that, the groups are brought together to a whole-class discussion. 

This exercise may go a bit differently, like it often happens in my class. I walk around the classroom and approach one of the groups; a student, let’s call her Anna, reads the following passage: 

I saw. 

Harun has no way of knowing at this moment that these words are more healing to Nathaniel than anything the doctor might do. Someone saw. (p. 65) 

Jenny, sitting next to Anna, immediately reacts: “Of course, the doctor wasn’t there, and Harun was. So he actually knows what happened and how.” Another student, Adam, jumps into the conversation: “I can see how Harun’s words might be healing. Nathaniel probably often felt, like he isn’t important for anyone to even notice him, much less to actually see him.” Anna, reacting to both of her classmates admits: “I can’t even imagine Nathaniel’s pain. He must have felt so lonely. I couldn’t live like that!” 

This sharing and exchange doesn’t quite happen as I explained the exercise to the students. Nonetheless, I don’t interrupt or remind them that only one student is supposed to respond right away because I want them to think and, if needed, disrupt each other during discussion and engagement with the text. They are trying to understand the characters’ experiences and feelings. They also respond to the text drawing connections to their own lives. Besides, the students are quite efficient and move to another student’s passage promptly.  

Metacognitive Journaling 

Close reading works well when combined with metacognitive journaling. In this case, students work independently at home or in class if time permits. I ask them to divide the page into three columns. As they read the assigned part of the novel, they choose five passages/episodes from the novel and record them in the left column of the journal. In the middle row, they write what they see, think, feel, or question about what they have read (Wilhelm, Baker, & Dube, 2001). After students complete the journal, they are paired with a partner in class. These partners exchange their journal entries. They read each other’s passages with the initial journal owner’s response and write their own reactions and thoughts to the partner’s passages and thoughts.  

An example of such a journal with two entries is presented below to show how students may respond to the text and the peer’s reaction to it. Here, they too react to the text making connections to personal lives and experiences.  

Table 2. An Example of a Metacognitive Journal Entry 

Selected Passages	My Response	My Peer’s response
They may be complete strangers, with different lives and different problems, but there in that examination room they are measuring sadness the same way. They are measuring it in loss. (p. 69)	This quote is sad and profound at the same time. Here are three young people who met by a strange accident, but each one of them is pained with some kind of loss: Freya lost her voice; Harun broke up with his boyfriend and is forced to meet the girl his parents chose for him, and Nathaniel lost everyone he loved. They are so young and so broken.	I agree. Their pain is also significant because they still don’t know how to deal with it. They think that world is crashed and beyond repairs. For example, Freya thinks that without the voice nobody will love her because in her mind love is always conditional.
“You are gonna be okay,” she says. “How can you know that?” Harun asks. “When a broken bone heals, it’s stronger than it was before the break,” she replies. “The same holds true for broken hearts.” (p. 244)	I just like this quote. It means to me that things are going to be all right. Freya has already looking for hope not only for herself, but for Harun too. She is helping him believe that the future is possible after a bad heartbreak as well. I also think that she realizes now that loss of her voice is not the end of the world either. She may find herself in a different way. Maybe, she can write song lyrics or music: la-la-la-la-la!	Yes, by this time in the novel, the characters have bonded enough to know each other better and to find ways to encourage each other. When last year I broke up with my girlfriend, I was so miserable. As time passed, I also realized we wouldn’t be happy together because we had different interests and goals. So, it was all good—the break up was good for me. I just didn’t know at the time.

Concluding Remarks 

The close reading exercises discussed in this post are just suggestions. They do not have to be followed precisely, and teachers may make any modifications to serve their teaching/learning purposes and knowing their students. As I mentioned, there is no need to use such activities with every reading. What I like about close reading that it develops students’ attention to the words: what is said, how it is said, and why it said. This builds a foundation for further analysis and interpretation of the text.  

Following these exercises, students may compile the novel’s brief version in sticky notes, for example. These reading passages will help with character analysis, creating a Character Identity (or Mind) Map, and completing a Body Biography. Finally, the close reading exercises advance students’ analytical skills and help in their final essays, or other culminating assignments and projects. If someone is interested in any activities mentioned here and/or has questions, please reach out to me at Leilya.Pitre@selu.edu. 

References 

Pitre, L. & Bickmore, S. (2018) Discussing war and death in A Separate Peace by John Knowles. In Bickmore, S. and M. Falter (Eds.) Moving beyond personal loss to societal grieving: Discussing death’s societal impact through literature in the secondary ELA classroom. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield.   

Wilhelm, J. D., Baker, T. N, Dube, J. (2001). Strategic reading: Guiding students to lifelong literacy, 6-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.