Close reading resources to support the Common Core

"Close reading" is the new buzzword in education, especially in Language Arts and Social Studies classes. Last summer I wrote a post called "Five close reading strategies to support the Common Core." After publishing that article, I received several requests for ideas on WHERE to find passages for students to close read.

Here are four ideas to get you started, with instructional ideas for implementation in your classroom:

1. Room for Debate - New York Times

If you are looking for multiple perspectives on current issues in the news, this is your one-stop shop. Room for Debate takes an issue and asks multiple experts to write a short editorial on the issue. I haven't counted, but I would estimate there are over 700 "issues" that are covered, and the site is updated with a new topic every couple of days.

I love the fact that most of the topics start with an essential question, such as: "Should Tweets Cost You Your Job?" and "Should Kids Pick Their Own Punishments?" Within those topics, there are usually 4-8 different opinions about the issue from professional writers. As you can see, they are high-interest topics for high school students.

Instructional idea: This site is great for pulling ideas for synthesis essays, where students must pull from different sources and address the opposition. Students can close read the articles and then develop an answer to the question in the form of an argument.

Mentor Writer: Leonard Pitts, Jr.

2. Mentor authors

In another post, I wrote about "Three ways to engage your students in writing." One of those strategies is to use "mentor texts" where students closely examine the "moves" that professional writers make, much like how I analyze the swing of professional golfers to help improve my struggling golf game.

There are many great mentor writers out there. Some of my favorites include:

• Leonard Pitts, Jr. - Miami Herald
• Mitch Albom - Detroit Free Press
• Rick Reilly - ESPN.com
• Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun Times
• Dave Barry - Miami Herald

Instructional idea: I ask students to first close read articles from these mentor authors and then emulate them for their own papers. Check out Kelly Gallagher's book Write Like This for more information on mentor texts.

3. Kelly Gallagher's "Articles of the Week"

Speaking of Gallagher, if you want a treasure trove of diverse articles, his website is the place to go.

In his book Readicide, Gallagher discusses how he noticed his students were not aware of current events happening in the news. His school implemented "Articles of the Week" where students read about a current event, while practicing close reading.

The last two years, I have had great intentions of doing an article each week for my students to stay current on what is happening in the news, but I keep moving away from it because I run out of time. This is something I need to commit to and stay consistent with in the future.

Instructional idea: Gallagher's site really kills two birds with one stone: practicing close reading strategies, while learning about what is happening in the world. 

Don't teach like this...

4. Short Passage from Novels

For years, I spent my time "teaching" as nothing more than a human Cliff's Notes, laboring through the plot and characters of novels. My quizzes and tests were filled with questions about which character said a particular quotation or what color of hat Holdyn wears in The Catcher in the Rye. It was boring for me, and I felt like I was working harder than my students.

I began to ask myself, "In 10 years, does it really matter that a student remembers the color of Holdyn's hat?" 

Honestly, I would argue that it is irrelevant and a waste of time.

Let me be clear: I believe it is important for students to be exposed to a variety of texts, including the "classics." However, I also believe that my job is to teach students how to dissect those works so they can extract meaning from them and then be able to apply those skills to other complex texts for the rest of their lives.

Instructional idea: I made the switch to teaching "excerpts" from the typical class novels, rather than the entire plot of a novel. 

For example, read this post to see how I changed my approach to Julius Caesar by focusing on the rhetoric of the speeches.

For Fahrenheit 451, students read the entire book on their own, but did close readings of specific passages. For example, we closely examined the first four pages for the imagery and figurative language that Bradbury used. We also looked at the argument between Captain Beatty and Montag, and analyzed the rhetorical strategies that Beatty employed. 

I know... it is a radical way of thinking about teaching novels. Trust me. Students will dig far deeper into the novel and have a better understanding of the book than if you just plow through and answer questions about plot.

Final thoughts

My teaching style has been revolutionized by the Common Core. In my previous teaching life, students were only swimming at the surface level of a book. Now, we are diving in to the deep end of the reading pool. These are great places to go in order to get started with close reading.

What are other resources you go to in order to find close reading passages? Please post in the comments below.