The Golden Rule of Close Reading

This week's #engsschat on Twitter focused on close reading, and it was fascinating to see how different educators interpret and use close reading skills in their classrooms.  Everyone agreed that close reading skills are important to teach and learn, but we each have our own ideas and questions about how to integrate close reading effectively and meaningfully into our day-to-day work with our students.

For me, close reading is all about becoming more conscious of how language informs meaning.  When I read something closely, I'm looking at what specific words, phrases, or more generally, choices, an author makes to elicit a response from me.  How exactly is Jefferson able to make me as angry as he is in the initial draft of the Declaration of Independence?  What does Poe mean, exactly, when he says in "The Fall of the House of Usher" that "Lady Madeline was no more"?   How does Morrison try to make me feel the generations-long struggle to overcome the legacy of slavery in Beloved?  Where do those emotional or intellectual reactions come from, and what buttons is an author trying to push to lead me to a particular range of experiences with the text?

Some folks registered concern that too much close reading can be off-putting, or that close reading without sufficient background context or scaffolding can be challenging.  I suppose that's true, but I can't help but think that if we need a bunch of context to find or make meaning of a text, then something's amiss.  Context is always helpful, but it shouldn't be required for a communication to be effective.

One of the prompts for the discussion asked if we lose something by investing solely on evidence-based reading--if we spend too much time figuring out where in the text we found our conclusions/responses, have we missed out on the magic of a text?

Maybe, but I propose that all reading, on some level, should be close, evidence-based reading.  Too often we passively allow what we experience to wash over us,  often with the noble thought that we'll go back and consider it more carefully when we have time and space to devote to it.   Unfortunately, we don't spend enough time thinking about why we think what we think, or what inspires us to feel. Instead, all too often we have knee-jerk reactions that, often because of time and bandwidth constraints, end up becoming our not-so-well-reasoned opinions.  

Reading, at its core, should always be an active engagement with another voice trying to communicate with me.  If I don't read closely, I'm just letting the words bounce off me--it's a one-sided interaction that more often than not doesn't stick.

When I tell my students to "read like a writer," what I'm really telling them is to use The Golden Rule.  Treat writers the way you want your writing to be treated.   I owe it to the writer to at least consider how and why she's trying to connect with me. After all, isn't that what I want my readers to do for me?

Things Fall Apart and a Single Story

I recently watched a terrific video where New York poet Suheir Hammad made the point that Things Fall Apart is one of the first portrayals of Africans not as slaves, but as communities with centuries-long traditions, social hierarchies, and perhaps most importantly, prosperity.


From the opening lines of his novel, Achebe challenges the "single story" of Africa by presenting us with a hero "well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond." (3)  Immediately he shows us how little English-speaking readers know about the Ibo, about Nigeria, and by extension, about Africa, since Okonkwo's reputation has spread far and wide across "twenty years or more" (3).  We should have heard of Okonkwo, but we haven't.

As the opening chapters unfold, we not only learn more about our hero, but about his community, where "the art of conversation is regarded very highly" (7) and "achievement was revered." (8)  This is not Conrad's portrayal of Africa in Heart of Darkness, where Africans are nameless, voiceless for the most part, and "nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation."  Instead, this is a civilized society with deeply-rooted values. 

However, as we also see in the novel, Umuofia is by no means a utopia.  Achebe creates a world not unlike our own where war, violence, pride, and dishonor cause conflicts and weaknesses.

As we continue our reading of the novel, I encourage you to think about what things could "fall apart" over time in Umuofia--what forces erode this once strong and powerful community.   

Semester II: The Danger of a Single Story

Happy New Year!  After a restful break, I'm excited to begin second semester with my with two very different, though related novels.  My AP Lit Seniors will tackle Conrad's Heart of Darkness, while my sophomores will read Achebe's Things Fall Apart.  As Achebe wrote his novel as a response to what he identified as Conrad's rampant racism in Heart of Darkness, I'm hoping to create some opportunities for my sophomores and seniors (who read Things Fall Apart when they were tenth graders) to share their thoughts about both texts.

While I'm eager to move from back and forth from one text to the other over the next few weeks, I'm going to start the semester in both courses with this TED talk by Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie, entitled "The Danger of a Single Story."

For this week's blog post, share your thoughts on Adichie's talk, after you've read the first chapters of Achebe's novel.  Does Adichie's talk influence your reading of this novel?  How?