ENGL 2450.

02: Nature, Ecology, and Literature

Fall 2016
Close Reading Assignment

To help you develop as a scholar of literature, you will complete three Close Reading
assignments throughout the semester. Your work on these shorter assignments will help you
engage more closely with course texts, preparing you to participate more rigorously in class
discussions and to complete the midterm paper and final project. I will often ask you to share
your close reading with the class, and may show the class strong close readings by students.
The Assignment
When Close Readings are due (9/12, 9/26, 11/14) arrive to class with a 500-word typed and
printed close reading from the days text. These close readings ask you to select a short
passagelikely about one full paragraph, or less (for poetry, perhaps a stanza). Spend time with
this passage, reading it over several times, noting word choice, imagery and symbolism, syntax
and sentence structure, voice and character development, and consider the passage in
relationship to the chapter / section as a whole. Underline, highlight, and annotate in order to
notice patterns of meaning emerging from the text. Then, decide on an interpretive focus for
your close reading, and compose a 500-word close reading that illuminates this interpretive focus
in detail.
What is Close Reading?
Close reading is an act of interpretation. Interpretation differs from summary. When we
summarize, we retell an event, story, poem or play in a condensed form, highlighting what we
identify as key chronological events. Summaries answer the questions: who, what, when, where,
why and how. They are necessary, but they can almost always be very brief, and for this
assignment, a summary can serve to illuminate your analysis and interpretation. To interpret,
however, is to explain how a text creates meaning, emotion, tension, etc. What ideas does a text
invite a reader to explore? How does the text convey these invitations through language? Of
course, different readers will identify different invitations that lead to different interpretations
of meaning. Your own close reading of a passage is unique, and you need not claim that your
reading is the only one. In fact, these readings should demonstrate your awareness that there are
multiple and often contradictory ways of reading a text.
How Do I Choose a Passage?
Choose a passage that moves you, confuses you, intrigues you, makes you laugh, or makes you
angryany emotional response to a passage most often means that there is much to analyze
there. Or, you may choose to trace a certain theme throughout the entirety of the class, such as
gender, ethnicity, material culture, aggression, violation, identity, etc. In that case you might
want to select the best passage for exploring that particular concept. The texts in this course will

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have a lot of strong imagery, so maybe youll want to pick a specific image that intrigues you.
Annotating the text as you read will help you select the best passages for you.
What Kinds of Interpretive Questions Create Strong Close Readings?
When you choose a passage to close read, ask questions that lead you to consider that passage in
complex ways. Some questions you may ask include (but are not limited to):
Why does a character feel or act a certain way? How can I tell?
What is the mood in this passage? How has the author created this mood? What effect
does that mood have on the reader?
What is the significance of a certain image (a verbal description of a visual phenomenon)?
What is its connection to the work as a whole?
Why is a character telling the story that s/he is telling? Why is s/he telling it in this way?
What effect does the text's chronology have on the story that is being told?
What is the language like in this passage? Is it erudite? Simplistic? Aggressive? Vague?
What does this kind of language suggest?
How is the text arranged (short sentences? Long ones? Lots of exclamation points? Long
paragraphs? Flowing language or blunt language?) What effect do these arrangements
have?
Why are certain comparisons being made? How are they bring made (directly?
indirectly?)
What different meanings does a metaphor, simile, or symbol invite?
What Makes a Good Close Reading?
In general, good close readings do a few things: 1) They engage constantly with the
chosen passage, regularly quoting from the passage and breaking down its individual parts
(analysis) as well as discussing it as a whole. 2) Good close readings are descriptive. Find the
exact terms you need to express what you see in the text and how you read it. Dont settle for
vague language. And 3) Good Close readings also recognize contradictions and rich
multiplicity of meaning. When you pose the question Does this mean X? Or does it mean
Y? while reading a text, the most complex and satisfying works of literature answer back:
Both. Or: Neither. The meaning here asks you to imagine something newsomething you
have never considered. The most successful literary critics invite, even embrace the way
literature asks us to question our own assumptions. Instead of imposing preconceived theories on
the text, they let the text teach them how to see the world in ways they had never imagined
before.
And when all is said and done, thats what literature can do for us. Literature asks us to step into
the minds, feelings, language, and identities of others in order to better knowand even
changeour world and ourselves.

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Some helpful verbs

Writing about how a text conveys meaning can be difficult. If you find yourself struggling to
explain what certain words or sentences or rhythms are doing, here are just a few verbs literary
scholars find useful.
A sentence or word or image or rhythm (etc.) may:
suggest
invite
imply
create
demonstrate
convey
question

invoke
evoke
point (to)
gesture (to)
highlight
foreground
exemplify

assert
argue
declare
challenge
reference
clarify
allude (to)

relate
compare
oppose
resemble
reflect
propose
elaborate

Habits to Avoid in Close Readings

Try not to confuse the author with the narrator or speaker. Remember that while the
author makes the composition choices, often those choices create a unique voice for the
narrator or speaker. [e.g., Poe was not a psychotic murderer (right?), but the narrator
of his The Tell-Tale Heart was.]
Try not to think solely in terms of the authors intention. As scholars, were not digging for
a limited number of treasures the author sneakily buried for us in the text. We are finding
new and interesting ways of reading that text. While there are many theories about the
importance or unimportance of authorial intention, the focus here is on the text itself.
What meanings does this thing in front of you convey, and how?
Avoid summarizing, except for necessary contextual information. Assume your reader
(me) has read the text, but could use helpful signposting to recall exactly where your
passage is. Instead of summarizing, really challenge yourself to an act of interpretation,
even if your reading seems strange, and especially if it seems risky.
Avoid calling everything symbolic of something else. Good close readings go beyond
this. Sometimes an element might be symbolic, but images, terms, and situations can be
meaningful without being simply symbolic. For example, a lamb in a story might not be
simply symbolic of innocence, but it might highlight or foreground a particular
characters innocence, infancy, vulnerability, etc.
Grading
These close readings (along with your 2 reflections) will be graded on a check plus, check, checkminus system. A check-plus is strong work, and receives for the sake of grade calculation a
10/10. A check on a close reading means the assignment was complete but could have been
stronger, and receives an 8/10 in the grade book. A check-minus means that the writer

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attempted a close reading but perhaps misunderstood or neglected to complete the assignment in
a key way, and will receive 7/10 (a C). As long as you turn in a close reading, you will receive at
least a C on that one.