The variety of lenses provided by Lehman and Roberts (2013) in their book about close reading is expected to be a powerful tool in teaching students about close reading and its impact on text comprehension. The authors discuss different lenses for narrative and informational texts and include them into six groups of text study: text evidence, word choice, structure, the point of view and argument, and reading across text (Lehman & Roberts, 2013). The lenses for close reading of narrative texts include characters’ speech, actions, and thoughts, gestures and expressions, relationships, setting, time, and objects that are repeatedly mentioned or described (Lehman & Roberts, 2013). The purpose of these lenses is to teach students to find the evidence first, and after they reflect upon this evidence, they can formulate an idea based on these text details. Moreover, such an approach to texts also encourages paying more attention to those facts that students tend to overlook (e.g. settings, time frames).
Descriptions, facts, graphic data, and phrases about a subject (or subjects) are used as text evidence when students need to close read an informational text. These texts can be difficult for students to grasp during their first attempt; close reading fosters attention to details that can help students with unknown definitions and new words.
The efficiency of close reading is rooted in its ability to help the reader “draw on prior and immediate knowledge to support integrating new text information” (Lapp, Grant, Moss, & Johnson, 2013, p. 111).
Lenses used in the study of word choice are alike both in narrative and in informational texts; here, students pay attention to emotions and images that these words evoke, the style, and particular groups of words such as nouns or verbs, for example. The words can often reveal the text’s central message or theme. However, the teacher has to be careful to ensure that students do not misinterpret the words or stick to those ideas not expressed in the text.
The structure of the text is examined through different lenses: for narratives, students focus on genre (fantasy/historical fiction) and plot, as well as the author’s techniques; for scientific texts, editorials and articles are more common, and students need to study the text features and sections as well. Descriptions and comparisons are common for both types of text, but action and flashbacks are normally used in fiction. Claims and definitions are features of scientific texts; during a close reading session, the teacher needs to emphasize these differences in lenses so that students can apply the right lenses to a particular type of text.
If students have a hard time with the second lens, the purpose, the teacher can use text-dependent questions to encourage students “consider evidence from the text” instead of trying to provide their own opinions, sometimes vaguely related to the text (Fisher & Frey, 2012, p. 185). With the help of such questions and lenses, students will be capable of recalling specific parts and details of the text to develop their understanding of it.
The next important category is the point of view and argument in the text. The characters’ and authors’ point of view (what they think, believe, feel) can be evaluated by engaging the previous lenses (characters’ actions, thoughts, the structure of the text, word choice, etc.) (Lehman & Roberts, 2013). Students can try annotating the text to use the notes later in a discussion (Fisher & Frey, 2012). For scientific texts, students need to use other lenses: claims, counterarguments, ideas, the relevance of ideas and facts (Lehman & Roberts, 2013). To understand what makes this opinion persuasive, students pay attention to emotional appeals, sense of audience, humor, some rhetorical devices that can be used in the text, etc. As it can be seen, lenses for understanding the point of view in narrative and informational texts are different; narrative texts tend to express points of view in a subtle way, while informational texts often state the argument at the beginning or the end of the article. However, word choice and structure are the lenses essential for both types of text because they often reflect the argument or its flow towards the main claim/idea.
The last set of lenses is used in reading across the text: a comparison of settings, genres, authors, styles, characters or subjects aims to help students not only develop better understanding of the given text but also “become [more active] in understanding their world” (Lehman & Roberts, 2013, p. 118). Furthermore, students will learn to identify intertextual relations in different types of text and media. Intertextual connections can make students more aware of the connection between different texts and their influence on each other.
The advantage of close reading is in its ability to motivate students to look deeper to find ideas and evidence, develop their cognitive skills, and generally see texts from a different perspective compared to the “wide” type of reading. Lapp et al. (2013) point out that students were excited about the experience of close reading although they felt tired as well. With the help of the lenses, students can learn much more about a text even after the first unprepared reading.
References
Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2012). Close reading in elementary schools. The Reading Teacher, 66(3), 179-188.
Lapp, D., Grant, M., Moss, B., & Johnson, K. (2013). Students’ close reading of science texts. The Reading Teacher, 67(2), 109-119.
Lehman, C., & Roberts, K. (2013). Falling in love with close reading: Lessons for analyzing texts and life. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.