Today we discussed how close reading strategies help us to "dig deeper" into texts. In order to help us understand this concept, students participated in a fun and yummy activity with oranges. Students recorded their observations of a clementine. The first round only involved looking, touching, and smelling the outside of the clementine. We realized that we couldn't discuss the clementine with confidence after this first round. Next, we removed a small piece of the peel. We discussed how we obtained much more information such as what was on the inside, how the smell got stronger, and that we felt the juice. On our third round, students completely peeled the clementine, could identify the structure of the fruit, and we got to eat them! We agreed that after the third round, we could confidently give many details about the clementines.
So....how does this connect to close reading? Here are a few student comments:
"When you only read a complex text once, it's like looking at the peel of a clementine. You only really notice the big ideas, but don't have an understanding of the facts yet."
"When we peeled a little bit of the clementine, we started to see more of the fruit (smell, feel, taste). When you read something a second time, you get more of the details."
"After we peeled the clementines, we could talk about its details with confidence. If we read a text many times, we shouldn't have any questions about it. We just know it."
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