By Rebecca van Lear
For those of us with training in the humanities—and especially English—close reading is a well-defined, specific skill that we began honing years ago. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to explain to our students. In my inquiry group last fall, we discussed the reality that many writing consultants come from English literature backgrounds, which can make it challenging for us to talk about writing concepts in a language that’s relevant to students concentrating in fields we may be less familiar with—for example, Business or Finance at Baruch. In my own classes, and in my sessions, I am often reminded of just how difficult it can be to explain the familiar skill of close reading to students who are encountering it for the first (or second or third) time.
Over the years, I’ve developed a couple of go-to metaphors for describing close reading. Sometimes, I ask students if they remember their days in high school math: they had to get the correct answer, but they also had to show the work that got them there to get full credit. I tell them that, while there’s no “right” answer in a literature paper, they still have to “show their work” when it comes to proving their thesis. They have to show the process of thinking through and understanding individual quotations on the page. Other times, I’ll try to draw a comparison between the “evidence” in literature papers, as compared to papers in disciplines like accounting or history: in all these disciplines, the evidence needs to be analyzed rather than treated as self-explanatory.
But I know from experience that one abstract explanation of close reading is usually not enough to help a student grasp the skill. Whenever I see an essay for a literature class that is missing quotations, or has quotations without any explanation or analysis, I begin with the same question: “Have you been talking about close reading in your class?” The answer is almost always yes.
So how else can we help students address prompts in classes where close reading is a must? I find that, while metaphors and explanations are a great start, it’s often helpful to bring in some additional materials.
Going over our resources in the past few months, I’ve come across several that can help demystify what close reading is, why we do it, and how we do it.
At the beginning of a session where a student has expressed concern about close reading, you might ask your student to read UNC Chapel Hill’s Guide to Literary Analysis while you read her paper. This guide breaks down the process of writing a close reading paper. As a caveat, there is a lot of text here, so you might guide the student’s focus to the sections on “Demystifying the Process” and “Make an Extended List of Evidence.”
If you’re looking for a sample passage to annotate and closely read with a student, Harvard provides one, as well as guiding questions you could refer to. Our own example over at The Lexington Review could also be used as an aid, especially to see how insights about a passage can translate into a paragraph (and a complete paper).
Finally, I’ve found it useful to refer to this annotated sample poetry paper. Whether your student is analyzing poetry or prose, this paper’s specific attention to word choice, and the way adjectives and nouns interact, can help students see just how specific their claims can (and often should) be. For students working on poetry in particular, this paper’s stanza-by-stanza progression provides an effective model.
Published on May 23, 2018
