Hey everyone,

The following is a link to a handout I have on close reading assignments.  The handout was generated for an African American literature course, so the examples are around Richard Wright’s Black Boy, but the general methods should be applicable to your paper.

Note: there are other ways to do a close reading than the two I have presented here, but these are two very common and tried and true ways of going about a close reading.   You should definitely look at the handout, and certainly if you feel uncertain about a close reading, you should try following one of the methods on this handout.

Handout:  Close-Reading-Strategy-Clean