Mastering Close Reading Techniques

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, I'm Nicole, and I wanted to make a quick video for you today about something called close reading. This is a form of literary analysis that helps you to dive into a passage of a well-written book or a poem and identify the techniques that make the writing so powerful. I've helped students who were working on close reading assignments for school, but I also think it's a really important topic to cover if you're a writer. because it allows you to discover techniques from well-written literature that will make your own writing more powerful. So let's look at how you can do a close reading. The first step is to make sure that you read the entire book or poem that you're going to be close reading. And this is really helpful because if you don't know the entire plot of the book, For example, it's going to be harder to identify certain techniques that the author is using. For example, if there's a character that dies later on in the story and the author is using foreshadowing at the beginning of the book to foreshadow that death, you wouldn't pick up that technique because you don't know that that character is going to die yet. So that's why it's really important to make sure that you understand the entire plot of whatever you're reading. So usually when I do a close reading, it's after I have already read the entire book, depending on how deep of a close reading I'm doing. The second step is to understand the context of the piece of literature that you're examining. So as we just talked about, it's important to know the entire plot of that piece, and it's also really important to understand the context of the author. So you want to know more about the author and why they were writing this piece of literature, if they ever, you know, explained that, and more about the time period that they were writing in. The third step is to summarize the paragraph or the passage that you're going to be close reading. So if you're close reading an entire poem, poems are shorter, so you might do an entire poem, but usually if you're close reading a book, you would just pick out a passage that really strikes you and that you want to examine closer. And you want to first look at. what are the most obvious things and jot them down. So, you know, who are the characters that are talking here? Maybe in the dialogue, the characters state, you know, like, I'm really jealous of this person. Then you know, like, okay, this passage is talking about jealousy or something like that. And that would be the most obvious thing. So first you want to look for those obvious details. And then the fourth step is to look at what are the central ideas or themes in the passage. And this is really, really helpful, I found, when I am writing my own fiction and I want to see how an author wove their different themes into a piece. Close reading really helps with that, where with this step you can think about what is that big idea that is going on at this point in the passage. The fifth thing is to look at the point of view of the passage. So, for example, who is the narrator? Is it written in first person, second person, third person? Do we have an omniscient narrator? Some books have an unreliable narrator, and that's really interesting to examine. And then you can think about, is the author here putting forth their own opinion, or is it an opinion of the characters? And the fifth step is to look at the language of the piece and the syntax. And you know, you can look at things like if this was a poem that you were examining, you would look at the rhyme scheme and the rhythm. And you can also do that when you're looking at a book. You can look at things like did the author use long sentences or short sentences? Or how did they vary their tempo here? What synonyms and metaphors did they use? How does that contribute to the theme of the piece and the big ideas of the piece? And really at this point, there's so much that you can examine depending on what passage you are close reading. Okay, so those were a lot of steps to keep in mind, and remember that some of these would be really important if you had a close reading assignment in school. If you're just doing close reading on your own, you don't have to follow all of the steps, and I'll get into that a little bit later and how you can use close reading for your own writing, but I wanted to show all of these steps in action, and I thought it would be fun to look at the first verse of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. If you've never read The Raven, you definitely need to. It's a fantastic poem. There's actually a really great recording of Christopher Lee reading The Raven, and I'll put a link to that in the description of this video. I definitely recommend checking that out if you've never read The Raven before, and if you have read The Raven, I still recommend checking it out because it's really, really good. Alright, so let's look at the first verse of The Raven. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."'Tis some visitor,"I muttered, tapping at my chamber door, Only this, and nothing more. So obviously the first step is to read the entire poem and if you did that you would know that this narrator is mourning over this woman Lenore who has died and he was in love with this woman and he's just really really consumed with grief over her death and then this raven enters the scene and starts tormenting him. Second, you would look at the context of the poem so maybe you'd want to research Edgar Allan Poe a little bit more. And then third, you'd really want to just jot down what strikes you here, you know, the most obvious things. Maybe look at the rhythm and meter of the poem. Fourth, you're going to look at what are the central ideas or themes. So here, for example, you might write down that the poem is about how grief haunts you and can alter your mind, or maybe you want to look at how this narrator has such devotion for this person who has died. And then fifth, you want to just look at the point of view of the piece. And here, obviously, Poe is writing in the first person and that really allows us to get into the head of this narrator and see their mental process and their mental breakdown over the course of the poem. And then sixth, we come to my favorite part, examining the language and syntax. So here are the first phrase in this verse where it says, once upon a midnight dreary. And that really echoes a fairy tale opening that we all know, once upon a time. But here Poe is inverting that and he's saying, once upon a midnight dreary. So if you think about fairy tales, even a Grimm's fairy tale, which can be very, very dark, fairy tales usually end with, they all lived happily ever after. But here Poe says, once upon. a midnight dreary. And it's kind of telling us that this poem is going to have a sort of fairy tale feel, but it probably isn't going to turn out so well for the protagonist. So I just really love how Post sets this up in this first phrase. And this is a really interesting technique that, you know, you can think about when you're writing yourself, when you're writing stories, how you can really establish a certain mood in your piece right from the opening sentence. So those are just a few of the things that you would look for. Obviously, if you spent more time close reading this, these are some of the surface level things and you'd want to dive deeper into this, but that's basically how you do a close reading where you're looking at what are the themes of the piece and how is the author playing with the language. So if you go and you read The Raven, I'd love to hear what strikes you in the piece and what stood out to you. And now I want to close with some final thoughts on close reading and how you can use it to make your writing more powerful. So if you found this video because you're doing a close reading for school, I just wanted to bring up two quick things to avoid and make sure that you don't fall into these traps. And the first one is not diving deep enough in the piece. So that's why that step is really important where you jot down the obvious things in the piece because your teacher probably wants you to dive deeper and look for things that are not on the surface. but that really helped the piece to be powerful. And maybe there's an obvious theme in the piece, but the author has kind of hidden a secondary theme that you can discover by close reading. And the second trap to avoid is reading too much into the piece. So if your teacher wants you to come up with an argument based on your close reading, make sure that you can support it and that you're also able to see other instances in the text that would support whatever you are close reading. So if you think that a metaphor or simile means something, make sure that you can support that. So close reading is really helpful if you're a reader. It helps you to really appreciate the great works of literature because you're examining the themes and ideas on a deeper level. But I also think it's really, really helpful for writers and I continue to use it. So I How I use a close reading is that if I am reading a book and I come across a passage that just really strikes me and I say, wow, this is a really beautifully written passage, I will pause and I'll use a lot of those close reading techniques to see what the author was doing there and, you know, are they varying their sentences? What similes did they use? What metaphors? And are there any techniques? here that I can use for my own writing. So for example, I have a video about how to vividly describe emotions in writing and the strategies that I share in that video I found through close reading. So I'll do that a lot where if I'm thinking about, you know, I want to write stronger dialogue, I can go to a book that I really love and I can examine the dialogue and using these close reading strategies I can look at how does the author really write powerful dialogue here. How does he say a lot in very few words? How does he communicate what the characters are feeling? So it's a really great technique to use if you are struggling with something in your writing, like you want to learn how to write better dialogue, or you want to learn how to describe something in a really powerful way. And it's also a really great technique to use if you are reading and you want to really use a more active reading strategy where when you come across something that really impacts you, you're able to break it down and see how the author put those sentences together to make it so meaningful and memorable. So I encourage you, if you have a favorite book that's really well written, to use some of these close reading strategies and go to a scene that you love in that book and see what techniques the author is using and how they're conveying the theme of the piece and how, you know, maybe they're using similes or metaphors to make that scene more impactful and memorable. And look for techniques that you can steal and use in your own writing. And I found that this is just a really great way to learn from the books of classical literature instead of just reading them, to use this more active reading approach where you're able to break down why they are so well written. So leave a comment below letting me know how you are going to use the close reading strategy and what book you are going to use it on. And if you enjoyed this video, be sure to give it a like and subscribe to me here on YouTube. And I'll also put a link in the description to my email newsletter where you can sign up and get more writing resources. Thank you so much for watching. Have a fantastic week. God bless, and I wish you all the best with your writing.

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, I'm Nicole, and I wanted to make a quick video for you today about something called close reading.

This is a form of literary analysis that helps you to dive into a passage of a well-written book or a poem and identify the techniques that make the writing so powerful. I've helped students who were working on close reading assignments for school, but I also think it's a really important topic to cover if you're a writer. because it allows you to discover techniques from well-written literature that will make your own writing more powerful. So let's look at how you can do a close reading.

The first step is to make sure that you read the entire book or poem that you're going to be close reading. And this is really helpful because if you don't know the entire plot of the book, For example, it's going to be harder to identify certain techniques that the author is using. For example, if there's a character that dies later on in the story and the author is using foreshadowing at the beginning of the book to foreshadow that death, you wouldn't pick up that technique because you don't know that that character is going to die yet. So that's why it's really important to make sure that you understand the entire plot of whatever you're reading. So usually when I do a close reading, it's after I have already read the entire book, depending on how deep of a close reading I'm doing.

The second step is to understand the context of the piece of literature that you're examining. So as we just talked about, it's important to know the entire plot of that piece, and it's also really important to understand the context of the author. So you want to know more about the author and why they were writing this piece of literature, if they ever, you know, explained that, and more about the time period that they were writing in. The third step is to summarize the paragraph or the passage that you're going to be close reading. So if you're close reading an entire poem, poems are shorter, so you might do an entire poem, but usually if you're close reading a book, you would just pick out a passage that really strikes you and that you want to examine closer.

And you want to first look at. what are the most obvious things and jot them down. So, you know, who are the characters that are talking here?

Maybe in the dialogue, the characters state, you know, like, I'm really jealous of this person. Then you know, like, okay, this passage is talking about jealousy or something like that. And that would be the most obvious thing. So first you want to look for those obvious details. And then the fourth step is to look at what are the central ideas or themes in the passage.

And this is really, really helpful, I found, when I am writing my own fiction and I want to see how an author wove their different themes into a piece. Close reading really helps with that, where with this step you can think about what is that big idea that is going on at this point in the passage. The fifth thing is to look at the point of view of the passage. So, for example, who is the narrator? Is it written in first person, second person, third person?

Do we have an omniscient narrator? Some books have an unreliable narrator, and that's really interesting to examine. And then you can think about, is the author here putting forth their own opinion, or is it an opinion of the characters?

And the fifth step is to look at the language of the piece and the syntax. And you know, you can look at things like if this was a poem that you were examining, you would look at the rhyme scheme and the rhythm. And you can also do that when you're looking at a book.

You can look at things like did the author use long sentences or short sentences? Or how did they vary their tempo here? What synonyms and metaphors did they use? How does that contribute to the theme of the piece and the big ideas of the piece?

And really at this point, there's so much that you can examine depending on what passage you are close reading. Okay, so those were a lot of steps to keep in mind, and remember that some of these would be really important if you had a close reading assignment in school. If you're just doing close reading on your own, you don't have to follow all of the steps, and I'll get into that a little bit later and how you can use close reading for your own writing, but I wanted to show all of these steps in action, and I thought it would be fun to look at the first verse of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven.

If you've never read The Raven, you definitely need to. It's a fantastic poem. There's actually a really great recording of Christopher Lee reading The Raven, and I'll put a link to that in the description of this video. I definitely recommend checking that out if you've never read The Raven before, and if you have read The Raven, I still recommend checking it out because it's really, really good.

Alright, so let's look at the first verse of The Raven. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."'Tis some visitor,"I muttered, tapping at my chamber door, Only this, and nothing more. So obviously the first step is to read the entire poem and if you did that you would know that this narrator is mourning over this woman Lenore who has died and he was in love with this woman and he's just really really consumed with grief over her death and then this raven enters the scene and starts tormenting him.

Second, you would look at the context of the poem so maybe you'd want to research Edgar Allan Poe a little bit more. And then third, you'd really want to just jot down what strikes you here, you know, the most obvious things. Maybe look at the rhythm and meter of the poem. Fourth, you're going to look at what are the central ideas or themes.

So here, for example, you might write down that the poem is about how grief haunts you and can alter your mind, or maybe you want to look at how this narrator has such devotion for this person who has died. And then fifth, you want to just look at the point of view of the piece. And here, obviously, Poe is writing in the first person and that really allows us to get into the head of this narrator and see their mental process and their mental breakdown over the course of the poem. And then sixth, we come to my favorite part, examining the language and syntax.

So here are the first phrase in this verse where it says, once upon a midnight dreary. And that really echoes a fairy tale opening that we all know, once upon a time. But here Poe is inverting that and he's saying, once upon a midnight dreary.

So if you think about fairy tales, even a Grimm's fairy tale, which can be very, very dark, fairy tales usually end with, they all lived happily ever after. But here Poe says, once upon. a midnight dreary.

And it's kind of telling us that this poem is going to have a sort of fairy tale feel, but it probably isn't going to turn out so well for the protagonist. So I just really love how Post sets this up in this first phrase. And this is a really interesting technique that, you know, you can think about when you're writing yourself, when you're writing stories, how you can really establish a certain mood in your piece right from the opening sentence. So those are just a few of the things that you would look for.

Obviously, if you spent more time close reading this, these are some of the surface level things and you'd want to dive deeper into this, but that's basically how you do a close reading where you're looking at what are the themes of the piece and how is the author playing with the language. So if you go and you read The Raven, I'd love to hear what strikes you in the piece and what stood out to you. And now I want to close with some final thoughts on close reading and how you can use it to make your writing more powerful.

So if you found this video because you're doing a close reading for school, I just wanted to bring up two quick things to avoid and make sure that you don't fall into these traps. And the first one is not diving deep enough in the piece. So that's why that step is really important where you jot down the obvious things in the piece because your teacher probably wants you to dive deeper and look for things that are not on the surface.

but that really helped the piece to be powerful. And maybe there's an obvious theme in the piece, but the author has kind of hidden a secondary theme that you can discover by close reading. And the second trap to avoid is reading too much into the piece.

So if your teacher wants you to come up with an argument based on your close reading, make sure that you can support it and that you're also able to see other instances in the text that would support whatever you are close reading. So if you think that a metaphor or simile means something, make sure that you can support that. So close reading is really helpful if you're a reader.

It helps you to really appreciate the great works of literature because you're examining the themes and ideas on a deeper level. But I also think it's really, really helpful for writers and I continue to use it. So I How I use a close reading is that if I am reading a book and I come across a passage that just really strikes me and I say, wow, this is a really beautifully written passage, I will pause and I'll use a lot of those close reading techniques to see what the author was doing there and, you know, are they varying their sentences?

What similes did they use? What metaphors? And are there any techniques? here that I can use for my own writing.

So for example, I have a video about how to vividly describe emotions in writing and the strategies that I share in that video I found through close reading. So I'll do that a lot where if I'm thinking about, you know, I want to write stronger dialogue, I can go to a book that I really love and I can examine the dialogue and using these close reading strategies I can look at how does the author really write powerful dialogue here. How does he say a lot in very few words?

How does he communicate what the characters are feeling? So it's a really great technique to use if you are struggling with something in your writing, like you want to learn how to write better dialogue, or you want to learn how to describe something in a really powerful way. And it's also a really great technique to use if you are reading and you want to really use a more active reading strategy where when you come across something that really impacts you, you're able to break it down and see how the author put those sentences together to make it so meaningful and memorable.

So I encourage you, if you have a favorite book that's really well written, to use some of these close reading strategies and go to a scene that you love in that book and see what techniques the author is using and how they're conveying the theme of the piece and how, you know, maybe they're using similes or metaphors to make that scene more impactful and memorable. And look for techniques that you can steal and use in your own writing. And I found that this is just a really great way to learn from the books of classical literature instead of just reading them, to use this more active reading approach where you're able to break down why they are so well written. So leave a comment below letting me know how you are going to use the close reading strategy and what book you are going to use it on. And if you enjoyed this video, be sure to give it a like and subscribe to me here on YouTube.

And I'll also put a link in the description to my email newsletter where you can sign up and get more writing resources. Thank you so much for watching. Have a fantastic week.

God bless, and I wish you all the best with your writing.

Transcript for:Mastering Close Reading Techniques

Transcript for:
Mastering Close Reading Techniques