Aristotle

New Criticism is about CLOSE READING, which means examining the text very carefully! Use “I think” or “In my opinion.” Remember, New Critics felt there were right answers to literature—individual interpretations are irrelevant! Try to cover too much. The more narrow your focus, the more in-depth your analysis will be.

New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object.

New Criticism was a formalist development in abstract hypothesis that commanded American artistic analysis in the center many years of the twentieth century. It underlined close perusing, especially of verse, to find how a work of writing worked as an independent, self-referential tasteful article.

Literary criticism is essentially an opinion, supported by evidence, relating to theme, style, setting or historical or political context. It usually includes discussion of the work’s content and integrates your ideas with other insights gained from research….

Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation

Things Fall Apart named one of 12 novels considered the “Greatest Book Ever Written” Things Fall Apart is regarded as an important novel and one of the greatest classics of our time. The story chronicles the pre-colonial life in Nigeria and the arrival of the Europeans during the late nineteenth century….

Write a Close Reading

1. Choose a passage.
2. Step 1: Read the passage.
3. Step 2: Analyze the passage.
4. Step 3: Develop a descriptive thesis.
5. Step 4: Construct an argument about the passage.
6. Step 5: Develop an outline based on your thesis.

Principles of analyzing a passage

1. Offer a thesis or topic sentence indicating a basic observation or assertion about the text or passage.
2. Offer a context for the passage without offering too much summary.
3. Cite the passage (using correct format).
4. Then follow the passage with some combination of the following elements:

But most essays, especially academic essays, begin with a close reading of some kind of text—a painting, a movie, an event—and usually with that of a written text. When you close read, you observe facts and details about the text. You may focus on a particular passage, or on the text as a whole.

Close Reading is a skill that requires students to determine purpose and notice features and language used by the author so that they can think thoughtfully and methodically about the details in the text and why they were used.

SQ3R is a reading comprehension method named for its five steps: survey, question, read, recite, and review.

Guided reading is an instructional practice or approach where teachers support a small group of students to read a text independently.

What does Guided Reading look like in an intermediate or middle school classroom? Guided Reading lessons in grades 3–8 include texts with increasingly complex structures and meaning. Students pick up where they left off in the previous grade.

They read books at their level and after level A they take comprehension tests on the books. For each book, the story is read to the student, and then they read it independently. I have also used Raz-Kids for homework, and I love the reports it gives you in the teacher section.

The goal of guided reading is for students to use these strategies independently on their way to becoming fluent, skilled readers. The steps for a guided reading lesson are: Before reading: Set the purpose for reading, introduce vocabulary, make predictions, talk about the strategies good readers use.

Getting Started with Guided Reading

1. Step 1: Launch Literacy Stations.
2. Step 2: Assess Your Students.
3. Step 3: Group Your Students.
4. Step 4: Gather Your Guided Reading Supplies.
5. Step 5: Pull Your Guided Reading Group.

Just focus on the challenges of each level of text (what students are working on mastering at that level) and how those challenges change between levels. Here’s an example: The Continuum describes a Level B text as having “short, predictable sentences that are close to oral language” (Pinnell & Fountas, p. 256).

Strategies for Differentiating Reading Instruction

1. Provide flexible grouping patterns.
2. Choice.
3. Choice boards.
4. Literacy centers, interest centers, and/or interest groups.
5. Learning contracts.
6. Give students meaningful work, not busy work.
7. Make the work for all learners appealing and motivating.

Really effective guided reading sessions have a sharp focus and stick to it. Ask questions focussed on these aspects and try to limit your assessment notes to these aspects too (see our guided reading prompts at the bottom of this page). Even more focus. Use your assessment notes to inform what you plan.

Teachers will designate half an hour in their timetable a day to a reading session for their class. They will work with a small number of children to analyse a text in detail, making sure each child can read each word and discussing meaning of the text with them.

How We Structure Whole-Class Guided Reading Lessons:

1. Activity (a) As you read, get the children to hoover up every last piece of new vocabulary. Stop and give children time to write down these words in their guided reading books.
2. Activity (b) 60 second retrieval quiz.
3. Activity (c) Quick-fire round of ‘Find and Copy’.