#4

Close reading to me is examining a piece of literature very closely and interpreting the meaning of sentences or words beyond the first instinctive meaning you come up with. In order to close read effectively, it requires the reader to take more than one step.

Like Dr. McClennen (http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/s/a/sam50/closeread.htm) describes, the process of close reading " moves from the smallest bits of information (words, sound, punctuation) to larger groupings (images, metaphors) to larger concepts (themes)." He explains that the reader should first looked at the smaller parts of the literature and figure out the structure of the writing is and what the words mean in context of the rest of the text. Patricia Khan (http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/documents/CloseReading.html) advises to "Read with a pencil and annotate the text." She explains how helpful it can be if the reader takes notes in the beginning about specific words or details within the text to give the reader clues to what he/she needs to pay closer attention to. Both these scholars seem to be first emphasizing the importance of looking at the smaller details in the beginning first to try and decipher what smaller details mean before looking at the bigger picture and trying to interpret the text as a whole.

Khan then describes the next step of close reading is to look the patterns in the text such as "repetitions, contradictions, similarities"and ask yourself questions as to what these patterns mean. I find this part of close reading the most important. Although it requires looking at the smaller to things first in order to successfully do this step, this is the step where it really gives the reader the backbone of what they think the reading is about. I see this step as the bridge between reading the text for the first time and really understand or interpreting what the reader thinks the piece of literature is trying to say. From this step, the reader can make conclusions about the reading and they can formulate what they think the theme or thesis is from the passage. Dr. McClennen brings up a very good point when he tells the reader to "Ask yourself how the passage provides insight into the text (and the context of the text)." He explains how this step can give the reader a good clue as to what the rest of the text is talking about based on just the one passage that is being interpreted.

To me, I think everyone does some form of close reading in their heads, but dont really think much about it as they're reading. When using these steps set up by Khan and Dr. McClennen, it allows the reader to really focus on their thoughts and put whatever that came up with in their heads onto paper and allows a reader to further look at the reading in more detail. Close reading is very important especially when trying to read harder and more abstract text because just close reading a paragraph can help a reader understand the rest of the text easier.