Texts
- Emily Mary Osborn, Nameless and Friendless (1857)
- Charles Perrault, “Bluebeard” (1697)
- Virginia Woolf, “The Lady in the Looking-Glass” (1929)
- Ray Bradbury, “The Veldt; or The World the Children Made” (1950)
- Clarissa Pinokola Estés, from Women Who Run with the Wolves (1992)
- Richard McGuire, Here (1989)
- Lynda Barry, from What It Is (2008)
- Charlie Brooker (creator), “The Entire History of You” (S1E3) Black Mirror (2011)
- Your Choice (2)
Resources
- Close Reading Examples
- The OED Method: Perform a close reading of a single word, phrase, or image in a text using the Oxford English Dictionary [access via WSU libraries] to develop multiple literal and figurative interpretations of individual words. Consider as many as 3 or 4 definitions of your chosen word in the context of the passage you are analyzing.
- Visualization: Lynda Barry’s “Stay Inside the Image”
Assignment: Close Reading Portfolio (200 points)
Learning Outcomes
- Demonstrate understanding that the world is a text that can be analyzed
- Demonstrate understanding that language and symbol systems are complex and contain multiple shades of meaning
- Demonstrate the ability to perform a close reading that engages in deep visualization and language analysis
Portfolio contents
The essay itself is 750 words.
- Develop a close reading of one texts (chosen by you). Perform a close reading of a specific passage in the text, using methods introduced in class.
The Writing Process, illustrated with 5 digital images.
- Document your close reading process, including the methods that were most critical to your deepening insights; for example: OED studies, visualizations, COIL method, contextual research, symbol studies
A post-writing reflection of 750 words.
- Describe your close reading process: what works and what doesn’t work to help you move into deeper interpretations of texts?
- Which texts that we read for class inspired, informed, or influenced you?
- Which lesson plans, activities, experiments, or discussions have informed your close reading process?
- What did you learn through this process? How has your close reading process shifted?
Assessment Criteria
- Visualization: You demonstrate skill in visualizing texts or images beyond their surface meanings. You are able to get inside the images (whether they are composed of words or of drawings) and capture a rich experience of what the images signify and convey
- Language: You demonstrate understanding of how language–and individual words–contain great depth, nuance, and complexity. You examine various shades of meaning–using multiple definitions from the OED to build out your interpretation–and/or integrating multiple connotations into your interpretation
- Process: You demonstrate understanding of the close reading method as 1) rooted in concrete evidence; and 2) supported by contextual and cultural influences in the interpretive process
- Engagement: You demonstrate critical engagement with course materials and lessons, as evidenced by your detail-oriented and evidence-based reflection on the close reading method