The invention of close reading. By transforming quotations into evidence, close reading served as way to turn postwar criticism into a specialized knowledge. But what if we treated it more as an art ...

(This is the last post in a three-part series on this topic. You can see Part One here and Part Two here.) This week’s question is: What is “close reading,” is it important and, if so, how should I ...

W hen I was an undergraduate at Amherst College, it was a rite of passage for all English majors to discover that they had entirely misunderstood Robert Frost’s most famous poem “The Road Not Taken” ( ...

This week’s question is: What is “close reading,” is it important and, if so, how should I teach it? Part One in this series featured responses from Christopher Lehman, Cris Tovani, Pernille Ripp, Jan ...

The new Common Core State Standards for English have stirred plenty of controversy. In a Vermont classroom full of 8th graders, they are working on a cornerstone of the core: close reading. Many of ...