English 25 Zapata

Close Reading Packet #1

The Art of Close Reading One of the most important skills to learn in a Critical Thinking/Literature class is how to perform a close reading of a passage. Close reading is the practice of examining a text line-by-line in an effort to clarify and explore its content and implications. It involves moving word-by-word and line-by-line through a literary (and possibly visual) text, putting language, diction, and meter under a critical microscope. A close reading, or explication, seeks to confront the particular words, images, and organization of a (usually literary) scene or passage. Close reading is a technique used to break up dense or complex ideas and language, or to draw attention to such individual parts as images or word choice. A critic employs close reading to better understand the relationship between the form of a passage and its content, and to clarify the meaning of a passage in the overall context of the text. Your close reading of a passage constitutes the basis of your interpretation and becomes evidence in your argument. Close Reading operates on the premise that literature, as artifice, will be more fully understood and appreciated to the extent that the nature and interrelations of its parts are perceived, and that that understanding will take the form of insight into the theme of the work in question. This kind of work must be done before you can begin to appropriate any theoretical or specific literary approach. Follow these steps before you begin writing. These are pre-writing steps, procedures to follow, questions to consider before you commence actual writing. Remember that the knowledge you gain from completing each of the steps is cumulative. There may be some information that overlaps, but do not take shortcuts. In selecting one passage from a short story, poem, or novel, limit your selection to a short paragraph (4-5 sentences), but certainly no more than one paragraph. When one passage, scene, or chapter of a larger work is the subject for explication, that explication will show how its focusedupon subject serves as a macrocosm of the entire worka means of finding in a small sample patterns which fit the whole work. Before you begin: To develop a close reading you must read your selection at least a couple of times. Make sure to determine the meanings of words and references you may not understand. Read with a pencil, highlighter in hand. You must annotate as you read (see Carol Porter-ODonnells Beyond the Yellow Highlighter: Teaching Annotation Skills to Improve Reading Comprehension). Highlight/underline/mark key passages, words, and phrases. What grabs your attention? Make marginal notes after highlighting. Write questions and comments about the text. Yes, annotating can be boring and time consuming. It can slow your pace as you read. However, you are using it as a tool to study a piece of literature. This takes you beyond reading. Going at the slower pace allows you time to absorb the complexities and ambiguities inherent in sophisticated literature. As you are working at the top of your game in reading comprehension, fine-tuning active reading strategies like annotating become a must!!! Paraphrase the entire selection in a few lines. You first read for comprehension and basic plot/story. Formulate a brief summary in your own words. In other words, what is the passage literally about? What happens?

If you follow these 12 steps to literary awareness, you will find a new and exciting world. Do not be concerned if you do not have all the answers to the questions in this section. Keep asking questions; keep your intellectual eyes open to new possibilities. 1. Figurative Language. Examine the passage carefully for similes, images, metaphors, and symbols. Identify any and all. List implications and suggested meanings as well as denotations. What visual insights does each word give? Look for multiple meanings and overlapping of meaning. Look for repetitions, for oppositions. See also the etymology of each word because you may find that the word you think you are familiar with is actually dependent upon a metaphoric concept. Consider how each word or group of words suggests a pattern and/or points to an abstraction (e.g., time, space, love, soul, death). Can you visualize the metaphoric world? Are there spatial dimensions to the language? Diction. This section is closely connected with the section above. Diction, with its emphasis on words, provides the crux of the explication. Mark all verbs in the passage, mark or list all nouns, all adjectives, all adverbs etc. At this point it is advisable that you type out the passage on a separate sheet to differentiate each grammatical type. Examine each grouping. Look up as many words as you can in a good dictionary, even if you think that you know the meaning of the word. The dictionary will illuminate new connotations and new denotations of a word. Look at all the meanings of the key words. Look up the etymology of the words. How have they changed? The words will begin to take on multistable meanings. Be careful to always check back to the text, keeping meaning contextually sound. Do not assume you know the depth or complexity of meaning at first glance. Rely on the dictionary. Can you establish a word web of contrastive and parallel words? Do dictionary meanings establish any new dynamic associations with other words? What is the etymology of these words? Develop and question the metaphoric, spatial sense of the words. Can you see what the metaphoric words are suggesting? Literal content: this should be done as succinctly as possible. Briefly describe the sketetal contents of the passage in one or two sentences. Answer the journalist's questions (Who? What? When? Where? Why?) in order to establish character/s, plot, and setting as it relates to this passage. What is the context for this passage? Structure. Divide the passage into the more obvious sections (stages of argument, discussion, or action; or in the case of poetry, stanzas). What is the interrelation of these units? How do they develop? Again, what can you postulate regarding a controlling design for the work at this point? If the work is a poem, identify the poetic structure and note the variations within that structure. In order to fully understand "Scorn Not the Sonnet," you must be knowledgeable about the sonnet as a form. What is free verse? Is this free verse or blank verse? What is the significance of such a form? Style. Look for any significant aspects of styleparallel constructions, antithesis, etc. Look for patterns, polarities, and problems. Periodic sentences, clause structures? Polysyndeton etc.? And reexamine all postulates, adding any new ones that occur to you. Look for alliteration, internal rhymes and other such poetic devices which are often used in prose as well as in poetry. A caesura? Enjambment? Anaphora? Polysyndeton? You need to look closely here for meanings that are connected to these rhyme schemes. Characterization. What insight does this passage now give into specific characters as they develop through the work? Is there a persona in this passage? Any allusions to other literary characters? To other literary works that might suggest a perspective. Look for a pattern of metaphoric language to give added insight into their motives and feelings which are not verbalized. You should now be firming up the few most important encompassing postulates for the governing design of the work, for some overriding themes or conflicts. Tone. What is the tone of the passage? How does it elucidate the entire passage? Is the tone one of irony? Sentimental? Serious? Humorous? Ironic? Assessment. This step is not to suggest a reduction; rather, an "close reading" or explication should enable you to problematize and expand your understanding of the text. Ask what insight

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the passage gives into the work as a whole. How does it relate to themes, ideas, larger actions in other parts of the work? Make sure that your hypothesis regarding the theme(s) of the work is contextually sound. What does it suggest as the polarity of the whole piece? 9. Context: If your text is part of a larger whole, make brief reference to its position in the whole; if it is a short work, say, a poem, refer it to other works in its author's canon, perhaps chronologically, but also thematically. Do this expeditiously. 10. Texture: This term refers to all those features of a work of literature which contribute to its meaning or signification, as distinguished from that signification itself: its structure, including features of grammar, syntax, diction, rhythm, and (for poems, and to some extent) prosody; its imagery, that is, all language which appeals to the senses; and its figuration, better known as similes, metaphors, and other verbal motifs. 11. Theme: A theme is not to be confused with thesis; the theme or more properly themes of a work of literature is its broadest, most pervasive concern, and it is contained in a complex combination of elements. In contrast to a thesis, which is usually expressed in a single, argumentative, declarative sentence and is characteristic of expository prose rather than creative literature, a theme is not a statement; rather, it often is expressed in a single word or a phrase, such as "love," "illusion versus reality," or "the tyranny of circumstance." Generally, the theme of a work is never "right" or "wrong." There can be virtually as many themes as there are readers, for essentially the concept of theme refers to the emotion and insight which results from the experience of reading a work of literature. As with many things, however, such an experience can be profound or trivial, coherent or giddy; and discussions of a work and its theme can be correspondingly worthwhile and convincing, or not. Everything depends on how well you present and support your ideas. Everything you say about the theme must be supported by the brief quotations from the text. Your argument and proof must be convincing. And that, finally, is what explication is about: marshaling the elements of a work of literature in such a way as to be convincing. Your approach must adhere to the elements of ideas, concepts, and language inherent in the work itself. Remember to avoid phrases and thinking which are expressed in the statement, "what I got out of it was. . . ." 12. Thesis: An explication should most definitely have a thesis statement. Do not try to write your thesis until you have finished all 12 steps. The thesis should take the form, of course, of an assertion about the meaning and function of the text which is your subject. It must be something which you can argue for and prove in your essay.

Conclusion. Now, and only now are you ready to begin your actual writing. If you find that what you had thought might be the theme of the work, and it doesn't "fit," you must then go back to step one and start over. This is a trial and error exercise. You learn by doing. Finally, a close reading should be a means to see the complexities and ambiguities in a given work of literature, not for finding solutions and/or didactic truisms.

BECOMING AN ACTIVE READER For this class, youll often be asked to formulate and present a coherent analysis of what you have read. To do this, you must consider a variety of issues. How does the text work? What meaning does it construct? How do the language, tone, and imagery of the text contribute to its sense of meaning? The only way you can begin to answer these questions is to spend time with the text. Read it. Read it again. The following tips are intended to help you become an active reader, aware of your responses to the text, and able to communicate clearly your thoughts and ideas about the materials you have read. Remember that being an active reader is also being an active questioner. Always read with a pen and notepad (your response journal) handy. You want to jot down any ideas and page references so you can reflect again later. You want to mark key passages, themes, and tropes in the text and to note any questions that arise while reading. Post-its are a great tool for marking your books for papers and discussions. You can label the passage topic on the post-it while reading to help collect textual evidence for your essays. THE FIRST READING On your first reading of a text, you will probably be most interested in simply following what happens. Such interest in the plot is natural, but try not to let that blind you to other things that are going on while the plot unfolds. Mark passages that strike you for whatever reason. Is a word, phrase, symbol, theme used repeatedly? How does the author set the mood or tone of the piece? Mark the passage so that you can return to it easily. FREEWRITING Immediately after reading the work for the first time, write about it for fifteen minutes. Do not concern yourself with logic, style, punctuation, or any other standard of correctness. If, in the middle of a sentence, another idea comes to yougo with it. The point of this exercise is to get down as many of your impressions of what you have read as possible without having to consider any possible use for what you are writing. Just let yourself think about what you have read and record those thoughts. To develop your compare and contrast skills, you can continue with the following exercise: After a quick break, do another free-writing on the various ways you think the text links up to other texts and themes of the course. What are the connections with and differences from other works in terms of thematic content, generic conventions, literary style? SEEING YOUR IDEAS AND ASKING QUESTIONS You never know what a session of free-writing will produce, and once you have it in front of you it is hard to know what to hang on to and what to toss away. Presumably, your work this semester will make you a better judge of what is a useful line of inquiry and what is not, but until you have informed such opinions, go through what you have written and underline what looks to you like a possible idea or significant question. List these on a separate sheet of paper and begin to think about how to follow-up on them. Whatever topic you have begun to focus on, plan to look for solid evidence of that on you next reading. After completing the reading, free write for 15 minutes. Time yourself and write continuously for the designated amount of time. Take a break. Then reread your free-writing, and underline any possible ideas or significant questions. Write these ideas/questions down on the back of the page or a separate piece of paper.

English 25 Zapata Blue Book Reading Response Journal: Keeping a hand written reading response journal will not only help you earn essential points, but will also help you develop your critical thinking and writing skills. Journaling is where you will first start to develop ideas for your essays. More importantly, your journal will prepare you for directed class discussions. The format of your journal is mostly up to you, it can be in bullet points or it can be one narrative. Think about how you can best incorporate what Carol Porter-ODonnell suggests in Beyond the Yellow Highlighter: Teaching Annotation Skills to Improve Reading Comprehension. In other words, make your journal your visual/written annotations of the reading while incorporating the dialectical journal component. To do so you must write down striking words/quotes/passages from the text and then write your commentary /reaction/analysis. Vocabulary: List any word that you do not recognize. Write the word and the definition. (You will not always have a vocabulary section. It depends on your understanding of the language. However, you should always read with a dictionary on hand.) Discussion Question: At the end of every journal entry include one question that you will use to begin a class discussion. Journal responses will correspond to the assigned reading for that day. Your journal notebook is worth a total of 150 points (30 pts each collection). I will be collecting your blue book response journal 5 (random) times throughout the semester. There must be an entry every day there is assigned reading. You may not turn in your journal if you were absent from class. At the beginning of each journal response write down: author, title of text, and page numbers assigned for that day. For example: Piri Thomas, Down These Means Streets, pgs 1-46 Im looking for each entry to be: 1) at least 100 words long 2) shows evidence of engagement 3) have at least three quotes from the text 4) vocabulary words (as needed) 5) one discussion question (to be written at the very end)