Teaching a Closed Read

Recently I taught a shared closed reading unit. According to Common Core, “Close reading is thoughtful, critical analysis of a text that focuses on significant details or patterns in order to develop a deep, precise understanding of the text's form, craft, meanings, etc”. My students were reading a text called Where Do Polar Bears Live and answering the performance task below.​ In this unit, we discussed how the polars bears are dying and how we can make as impact with our actions. This closed read had cross content integration. Classrooms that Work details that teacher should intertwine Social Studies and Science into their ELA lessons, as it exposes students to a wide variety of content, genres, and information.

I used the backward designing planning process in my planning to have my students be able to answer the performance task above. The student had 3 days to work with the text leading up to their letter. A closed reading requires that students analyze the texts more thoroughly, meaning students need to read the text many times. I focused simply one text in this closed reading to prevent information overload, as stated in Edpsych Modules which is when students feel overwhelmed due to too much information.

I used turn and talk frequently to have my student express their thinking and gain knowledge from each other. I used a teacher read aloud so all my students on varying levels could have access to the text. Strategies That Work states that read can motivate children to read independently and developed a love for reading. I use read alouds to model thinking aloud and my active life as a reader. I am a firm believer that read alouds should happen in all grades, as Strategies That Work states how read alouds offer children chances to see how a reader make sense of a text and because read alouds can bring the class together as a reading community.

In my first lesson I tapped into the students' background knowledge, had the students make predictions about the text, and engaged them with the new vocabulary in the text. Strategies That Work says activating the students' background knowledge aids they in making meaning of what they are learning. I used a video about polar bears to start off the unit, as it hooked my students and introduced our study.

In my second lesson, I had engaged the students with the vocabulary again and worked on text dependent questions with my learners. This had them go into the text, recall information, and seek meaning from the information. To get my students thinking about their thinking, they had the opportunity to make their own question about the text! This pushed my students to critically think about the text and promoted metacognition. In the last lesson, students had to collaboratively chart the events in the text. During this closed read, I learned that there is so much to do with just one text!

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