Sassy, Savvy, Simple Teaching: Falling in Love with Close Reading Book Study: Chapter 6

Hello Friends~

Welcome back for Week 6 / Chapter 6 of our Close Reading Book Study! I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend!

Below is a direct link to the previous chapters in the book:
Chapter 1 {CLICK HERE}
Chapter 2 {CLICK HERE}
Chapter 3 {CLICK HERE}
Chapter 4 {CLICK HERE}
Chapter 5 {CLICK HERE}
Make sure that you visit each participants blog to see what they have to share about each chapter. Don't forget to enter our raffle each week as well!

Chapter 6
The Family Tree
Closely Reading Across Texts

The chapter begins with comparing parts of our personal life, family, friends, actions & are own characteristics. Nothing is ever the same & we develop from those around us. Then links this ah-ha with texts. No 2 texts, articles, story, etc... are ever the same. We can knew knowledge by comparing texts as a reader & our insights grow as we get older & continue this behavior.

The authors then introduce the Close Reading study for Reading Across Texts as follows...

The authors state in Fig. 6.2...
Reading Closely for Reading Across Texts

1. Read through lenses.

Choose a comparison:

Characters or subjects
Themes or central ideas
Settings
Authors

Then choose your texts:

What other text fits with this chosen comparison?

2. Use the lenses to find patterns.

Decide how to compare:

Text evidence
Word choice
Structure
Point of view

3. Use the patterns to develop a new understanding of the text.

Have new ideas about:

The lens you looked through
The authors' choices
The messages these texts send

(Lehman & Roberts, 2014, p. 101)

You can look at the Common Core standards or any set of standards for Information Texts or Literature & find the words: analyze, different, similar, choices & so on. All the standards want students to be able to look at different pieces of texts & compare the topics, themes & how the author(s) wrote the piece. This is something I know I teach all the time so I felt very close to this chapter as I read through.

Question #1: Chapter 5 & 6 offer ways to read closely for point of view or bias & for reading critically across the texts. Share some general ah-has, questions & comments.

To go back & re-read Chapter 5 from last Sunday {CLICK HERE}. Be sure to read everyone's post who linked up!

I had some reassurance from this chapter when I was reading through it, I kept thinking to myself "I am on the right track". My previous experience introducing Close Reading was practiced with Information Texts. I have always used 2 texts on the same topic with my students. So I was able to really connect while reading this chapter.

I LOVED the lesson the authors used in this chapter to model. They chose to use Media again & had students comparing through sitcoms! What a great idea! It's like I have a road block in my head sometimes, TEXT CAN BE ANYTHING REALLY! It doesn't have to be an article or book. You can teach through media! They gathered scenes & clips from students favorite TV shows to compare theme such as family or friendship! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The kids in 3-5 at our school struggle so much with theme. I can't wait to share this with them! I LOVE it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had so many connections with this chapter that it quickly became my favorite yet!!!!

Question #2: What Close Reading resources have you found useful?

I LOVE so many resources made for Close Reading on TpT. Here are some that I use on a weekly basis with my small groups:

2nd Grade Close Reading and Text Evidence

Information Text (52 passages)

By: Teaching and Tapas