Close Reading in the Secondary Classroom. Jeff Flygare
reading process need to practice it with less challenging texts. As students improve in their abilities to read closely, as measured by a proficiency scale, teachers will want to present them with ever more challenging texts. (See chapter 6, page 87, for more about proficiency scales.)
An important consideration is the reading level of the text. Tradition sometimes dictates that certain texts are taught at a certain grade level, perhaps without due consideration of the text’s reading level. Here is an example of a challenging text traditionally taught in either seventh or eighth grade:
It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty will end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. —July 15, 1944 (Frank, 1947/1997, pp. 12–13)
This excerpt from Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl will be familiar to many. Though a traditional middle school text, its reading level is tenth grade (Flesch-Kincaid 10.2). Flesch-Kincaid reports readability at typical grade levels for U.S. public schools. This is not to say teachers shouldn’t teach the book in middle school, but it does demonstrate why many middle school students struggle to understand the text. When choosing texts, teachers should start with a clear understanding of students’ abilities and decide whether to connect with their current reading level or challenge them a bit to go beyond it. Further, it is important to examine texts traditionally taught at each grade level and understand the challenge each work represents to readers in each grade. It’s possible some texts should be taught at higher grade levels than they are, while others, though above the grade level, stay there for other important pedagogical reasons (such as preparing students for the next level of instruction). A good example is Shakespeare’s (1595/1997b) Romeo and Juliet. This text, traditionally taught to ninth graders, represents a reading level far beyond ninth grade. For example, the opening prologue speech, a Shakespearean sonnet, has a Flesch-Kincaid reading level of 14.2, which suggests its reading level is second-year college. Yet it is an important text to teach in the first year of high school to introduce students to the complexities of Shakespearean writing as preparation for other forms of that writing in the years ahead. Recognizing that the text is very challenging to ninth-grade readers would suggest to teachers that asking students to independently read and understand the entire play is probably beyond their abilities. Thus, we approach a complex text such as Romeo and Juliet in a different manner, often reading portions of it rather than the entire text.
At the same time, teachers should not be afraid of presenting students with complicated passages that challenge their understanding and appreciation of a writer’s craft. In close reading, the focus is on an author’s style and craft in addition to content. In a high-quality text, the author’s craft will support and inform the content. One may read a classical author for many reasons, and often those reasons are related to content—though style should not be ignored. Virginia Woolf, the amazing early–20th century British writer, is often seen as an important feminist movement writer, and rightly so, but one should not ignore the stylistic power of an author who can craft writing like this:
Strife, divisions, difference of opinion, prejudices twisted into the very fibre of being, oh, that they should begin so early, Mrs. Ramsay deplored. They were so critical, her children. They talked such nonsense. She went from the dining-room, holding James by the hand, since he would not go with the others. It seemed to her such nonsense—inventing differences, when people, heaven knows, were different enough without that. The real differences, she thought, standing by the drawing-room window, are enough, quite enough. She had in mind at the moment, rich and poor, high and low; the great in birth receiving from her, half grudgingly, some respect, for had she not in her veins the blood of that very noble, if slightly mythical, Italian house, whose daughters, scattered about English drawing-rooms in the nineteenth century, had lisped so charmingly, had stormed so wildly, and all her wit and her bearing and her temper came from them, and not from the sluggish English, or the cold Scotch; but more profoundly, she ruminated the other problem, of rich and poor, and the things she saw with her own eyes, weekly, daily, here or in London, when she visited this widow, or that struggling wife in person with a bag on her arm, and a note-book and pencil with which she wrote down in columns carefully ruled for the purpose wages and spendings, employment and unemployment, in the hope that thus she would cease to be a private woman whose charity was half a sop to her own indignation, half a relief to her own curiosity, and become what with her untrained mind she greatly admired, an investigator, elucidating the social problem. (Woolf, 1927/1989, pp. 8–9)
The complexities of this passage are enormous. On first reading, one notices rather readily the content, which describes the main character and her internal thoughts—first about her children, then the issue of her own social acceptance, and finally the larger social issues of the time. But that is not what is vital in this passage. Woolf’s ability to present layer upon layer of ideas folded one within another, represented through complex sentences that enfold clauses within clauses, challenges the reader and thus represents the complexity of the main character. One cannot ignore the quality of this writing; few writers can emulate it. While such a passage would be a challenge to even the most diligent high school seniors, it is something teachers should occasionally expose their students to so they can appreciate what good writing is. Such writing does not primarily entertain; it is artistically exquisite.
There are several methods for teachers to assess a text’s reading level and complexity level to match the needs of students. Reading level is a good starting point, and many textbook publishers provide this information in their catalogs and on their websites. Teachers can also establish the reading level of a text by typing (or copying and pasting) a segment of text into Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word, with its Spelling and Grammar tool, can help teachers assess many readability factors and help teachers judge whether a text is appropriate for their students. The following applies to Word 2016, but similar settings are available in most previous versions of the program. In Windows, start by accessing your File menu and then clicking Options. Under the section When Correcting for Spelling and Grammar, be sure to select Show Readability Statistics. Once in the document, click on the Review menu and click Spelling and Grammar. On a Mac, start by accessing Preferences. In the Spelling and Grammar section, select Show Readability Statistics. Then, in the Tools menu, click Spelling and Grammar. At the end of the spelling and grammar check, Word will display the Flesch-Kincaid level of the highlighted text. Another easy way to check a text’s reading level is with the website Readable.io (https://readable.io). Here you can type or copy and paste a section of text into the website and receive information about its reading level through several methods, including Flesch-Kincaid.
Text complexity is much more challenging to determine. Lexile or ATOS measurements can provide good estimates of text complexity, though they may not address all possible interpretations of a text. Thus, the best advice for teachers is to use their best judgment given the goals of the close reading session and their own experience with the text. If the text is at an appropriate reading level, teachers should determine whether the text provides students a rich experience in using authorial devices (we will discuss this more later) and presenting ideas. Making this determination is not an exact science, but a teacher’s experience of teaching a text is the best determinant of whether the text is at the correct level of complexity. If you are new to the content you’re teaching, seek out the advice of teachers who have taught the same texts for years.
Type of Text
Most academic standards (including the CCSS) look at texts in two categories: (1) literary and (2) informational. This distinction in the standards suggests a fundamental difference between these two kinds of texts. The reason for this distinction is to promote the teaching of informational texts in public school classrooms (Common Core State Standards Initiative, n.d.). This is a vitally important effort because standards-defined informational text is