Falling in Love with Close Reading: Lessons for Analyzing Texts–and Life

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"Love brings us in close, leads us to study the details of a thing, and asks us to return again and again. These are the motivations and ideas that built this book."
-Chris Lehman and Kate Roberts

You and your students will fall for close reading. In Falling in Love with Close Reading, Christopher Lehman and Kate Roberts show us that it can be rigorous, meaningful, and joyous. You'll empower students to not only analyze texts but to admire the craft of a beloved book, study favorite songs and videogames, and challenge peers in evidence-based discussions.

Chris and Kate start with a powerful three-step close-reading ritual that students can apply to any text. Then they lay out practical, engaging lessons that not only guide students to independence in reading texts closely but also help them transfer this critical, analytical skill to media and even the lives they lead.

Responsive to students' needs and field-tested in classrooms, these lessons include:

• strategies for close reading narratives, informational texts, and arguments
• suggestions for differentiation
• sample charts and student work from real classrooms
• connections to the Common Core State Standards
• a focus on viewing media and life in this same careful way.

"We see the ritual of close reading not just as a method of doing the academic work of looking closely at text-evidence, word choice, and structure," write Chris and Kate, "but as an opportunity to bring those practices together to empower our students to see the subtle messages in texts and in their lives." Read Falling in Love with Close Reading and discover that the benefits and joy of close reading don't have to stop at the edge of the page.

Read a sample from the book to learn more about Chris and Kate's close-reading ritual for students and for an annotated text that shows how it works.