How do you read closely

Details of language convince us of our location "in the West"— gulch, arroyo, and buffalo grass. Beyond that, though, Eiseley calls the spider's web "her universe" and "the great wheel she inhabited," as in the great wheel of the heavens, the galaxies. By metaphor, then, the web becomes the universe, "spider universe. But so what? Ask questions about the patterns you've noticed—especially how and why. To answer some of our own questions, we have to look back at the text and see what else is going on.

For instance, when Eiseley touches the web with his pencil point—an event "for which no precedent existed"—the spider, naturally, can make no sense of the pencil phenomenon: "Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas. And if we start seeing this passage in human terms, seeing the spider's situation in "her universe" as analogous to our situation in our universe which we think of as the universe , then we may decide that Eiseley is suggesting that our universe the universe is also finite, that our ideas are circumscribed, and that beyond the limits of our universe there might be phenomena as fully beyond our ken as Eiseley himself—that "vast impossible shadow"—was beyond the understanding of the spider.

But why vast and impossible, why a shadow? Does Eiseley mean God, extra-terrestrials? Or something else, something we cannot name or even imagine? Is this the lesson? Now we see that the sense of tale telling or myth at the start of the passage, plus this reference to something vast and unseen, weighs against a simple E. And though the spider can't explain, or even apprehend, Eiseley's pencil point, that pencil point is explainable—rational after all.

So maybe not God. We need more evidence, so we go back to the text—the whole essay now, not just this one passage—and look for additional clues.

And as we proceed in this way, paying close attention to the evidence, asking questions, formulating interpretations, we engage in a process that is central to essay writing and to the whole academic enterprise: in other words, we reason toward our own ideas. Skip to main content. Main Menu Utility Menu Search. Contact Us. Readers can also examine texts on the same topic or from the same genre.

Timothy Shanahan is a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was director of reading for the Chicago Public Schools. He is also a past president of the International Reading Association and a former first-grade teacher. Click Here to Subscribe to Instructor Magazine.

Featuring six complete lessons, this book also covers everything you need to know about text complexity, rigor, and text-dependent questions. Is it possible to fall in love with close reading?

Lehman and Roberts make a compelling case. Chapters include those dedicated to word choice, structure, point of view, and more. Not sure how close reading works across genres?

This resource focuses on ways to approach narrative, argumentative, expository, and new-media texts. Dedicated entirely to informational texts, this book addresses key skills, including previewing, understanding features, and self-monitoring. Create a List. List Name Save. Rename this List. Rename this list. List Name Delete from selected List. Save to. Save to:. Save Create a List. Create a list.

Save Back. Common Core: Close Reading. Students are writing for an audience of engaged and interested peers. This means that the writer can assume that their reader knows the text and doesn't need extensive plot summary in the introduction or start of the essay.

This frees up space for analysis and the laying out of each section's claims. It also helps to develop an authoritative voice: you are an expert speaking to other experts. What generic clues are here what kinds of writing are hinted at? Are there words or phrases which are ambiguous could mean more than one thing? If so, are we directed to privilege one reading over the other or do we keep both in play?

What are the connotations of the words that are chosen? Do any of them open up new or different contexts? Are there patterns which emerge in the language the repetition of words or of certain kinds of words? Repeated phrases?

Rhymes or half-rhymes? Metrical patterns? What effects do they create? Is there any movement in the passage you are reading? Are there any shapes or dominant metaphors? What kind of rhythm does the passage have?