Category: close reading

Word, or sentence? Teaching Theme

Theme. It’s one of the most difficult topics to teach students in language arts classes. And theme is never something they master. They have to work hard to get better at it every year. But is a theme a word, or a sentence? The goal of close reading and annotating

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annotations

Getting Started With Annotation

Annotation is an important skill for ELA students to master. But where do we start? When I rent a movie I’m a sucker for the bonus features. I recently watched “Mission Impossible: Fallout and then spent the next hour watching how all the stunts were done. I was amazed to

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2 Ways to Analyze a Passage From Literature

All ELA teachers want to develop their students into good readers. That not only involves building the love of reading but also involves developing critical reading skills in the classroom. We want our students to be able to read critically and analyze a passage, which involves taking a passage apart

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Annotation Games

Many students find annotation a chore. They do it for the teacher and not for their own benefit. They claim annotating makes them hate reading. I understand where they’re coming from. Annotation is difficult. It slows down the reading process. However, we can’t build active readers without it. We want

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The What, How, and Why of Close Reading

I begin class by with a short story. An extremely short story, in fact —it’s called “The Birthday Party” and it’s only three paragraphs long. Reading it with a class is an opportunity to see what my students do when they are asked to do a close read. We’ve trained

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