5 Close-Reading Strategies: The Ultimate Guide to Close Reading

Close reading allows you not just read a passage, but analyze it. The process of close reading teaches you to approach a text actively, considering its purpose, how the author chose to present it, and how these decisions give the text a deeper meaning or impact.

Close reading improves your reading comprehension, analysis, and writing. It makes you a better writer, with more to say in your essays and paragraphs. Any age group can practice close reading, and it works with any text—fiction or nonfiction.

This article will outline everything you need to know about close reading, including what it is, why it's important, how to do it, and 5 strategies to improve your close reading abilities.

What is close reading?

Close reading is a reading technique that examines how the author's language and structure choices contribute to a deeper meaning. This method looks beyond the plot or main arguments, instead considering the author's purpose or central message, noticing the decisions they made in order to affect the audience and achieve their goal.

No matter the text genre—story, article, poem—every author has some sort of purpose: to inform, convince, entertain the audience, or a combination of these. They use language and literary strategies to achieve the desired effect.

Common literary strategies (devices) that authors use with intention:

• Diction: Word choice

• Syntax: Sentence structure

• Tone: Emotion of the words used

• Conflict: Problems, issues, or disagreements within or related to the text

• Structure: The order of the words, sentences, paragraphs, and ideas

• Point of view: The speaker’s perspective on the events or subject matter

• Genre: The category or “type” of text–fiction, science-fiction, scientific article, etc.

• Imagery: The sensory or visual language the author uses to describe the subject, characters, setting, etc.

Close reading examines how the author uses these strategies to develop the text, make the reader feel something, and/or communicate an idea.

Why is close reading important?

Let's be honest, we all know one of the main reasons close reading is important: because it helps you get a better grade in English class. Being able to study a text, determine its main idea or purpose, and analyze the author's choices allows you to write great analysis essays and paragraphs, an area where many students struggle.

But beyond school, close reading leads to a richer reading and writing life. It helps you learn to appreciate good books and authors more, and talk about the them on a deeper level. In your own writing, you'll also naturally find yourself emulating the strategies you read.

How do you do a close reading?

To do a close reading, start by selecting a poem or important passage from a text, closely observing the writing style and structure while you read. Notice the author's language choices, underlining words, phrases and patterns that catch your eye. Jot down your thoughts and observations while you read, and asking questions that pop into your head. Finally, ask yourself "Why did the author make these choices, how did they affect me, and what purpose do they serve in the text?"

The Close-Reading Process:

1. Select a text passage: Pick a passage to analyze, usually something between one and three paragraphs. Songs and poems also work well for close reading.

2. Notice the writing style: As you read, ask yourself “What stands out to me about this author’s style? What patterns, words, and choices do I notice?” Pay attention to the emotions you feel as you read, identifying what in the text triggers that response.

3. Observe the structure: Notice how the author orders words, sentences, lines, and paragraphs. Consider how this order helps develop an image or idea about the text’s subject. Ask yourself, “How does this structure guide and shape my understanding of the subject?”

4. Notice language choices: The author selected particular words to build a tone, evoke images in the reader’s mind, create a nuanced argument, or have some other effect on the reader. Note powerful or significant diction—word choice—and consider the purpose it serves, or how it enhances other literary devices, such as tone or imagery.

5. Underline: Have a pencil while you read and–if you’re allowed to mark the paper–underline any observations you make. If you're on a computer or tablet, you can highlight these observations instead. Highlight or underline any of the devices listed above, anything that has an effect on you, or anything you enjoy. There’s no right or wrong way to annotate a text, so mark whatever catches your interest.

6. Annotate: Record your thoughts and observations as you read, by writing in the margins, on a separate sheet of paper, or using an assigned annotation format. Feel free to make notes about anything: questions you have, words you like, literary devices you catch, or anything you notice.

7. Ask questions: Along with the annotation ideas listed above, formulate questions and record them while you read. Generally, good questions tend to begin with how or why. For example, “Why did the author use this word?” or “How does this detail affect the reader?”

5 Close Reading Strategies to Improve Analysis and Comprehension

Here are my 5 favorite strategies to improve your close reading, analysis, and reading comprehension:

• Generate a purpose question (PQ)

• Annotate with your PQ in mind

• Track the 5 Ws

• Notice the conflict

• Identify the tone

Generate a Purpose Question

A purpose question (PQ) is a question you pose before reading a text, to help you read actively. You can create a PQ for anything you read—a novel, a short story, a poem, a passage, or an informational text—and there is no right or wrong question to ask.

To create a PQ, consider any pre-reading context you have:

• Title

• Topic

• Genre

• Text images

• School assignment guidelines

• Any task you’re expected to complete when you finish reading

Examine the text’s title to guess what the text is about, then formulate an open-ended question that relates to the text, what it might say, and what might be important. As you read, seek and underline information that relates to your PQ and helps you answer it. By the time you finish reading, your goal is to answer your PQ.

The types of PQs you ask may vary depending on the text's genre.

Example Purpose Questions:

Text Title	Example PQ
"A Good Man is Hard to Find" (short story)	Why is a good man hard to find?
“The Lady with the Dog” (short story)	What is so important about the lady and her dog?
“The Fringe Benefits of Failure” (nonfiction essay)	How can failure be beneficial?
“An Epidemic of Fear” (nonfiction essay)	What is causing the epidemic of fear?
“New Therapies to Aid Muscle Regeneration” (informationational article)	What are the new therapies, and how do they aid muscle regeneration?

Write down your PQ wherever you plan to take notes: in a notes app, in a notebook, on a word document, or on a piece of paper. When you read with a purpose—such as answering a question—it becomes easier to determine what’s important in the text.

Annotate with your PQ in Mind

It’s much easier to take good notes when you have a reading goal—something to answer or accomplish, such as a PQ. As you read and annotate the text, keep your PQ in mind. Search the text for details that relate to your PQ. Underline relevant details and record how they to your PQ.

As you read the text, constantly ask yourself, How does this information help me answer my PQ? When you’re finished with the text, you should be able to answer your purpose question—and the notes you’ve taken should help you do that.

Track the 5 Ws

To monitor your own comprehension while you read, remain aware of the text’s 5 Ws: who, what, where, when, why.

While reading, reflect every now and then to verify the following information:

• Who: Who is the text about? Who is narrating, or telling the story?

• What: What is the text about?

• Where: Where do the text’s events take place?

• When: When did the text’s events occur?

• Why: Why did this main event occur? Why did the storyteller write this text?

  
  

If you finish reading and still feel uncertain about this core information, backtrack a couple paragraphs and reread them. The 5 Ws also work as an annotation strategy, where you underline all textual information related to the 5 Ws.

Notice the Conflict

Every story or passage centers around at least one conflict. A conflict is the characters’ primary struggle—the issue they’re faced with, the main challenge they try to overcome.

Remember that characters often experience both external and internal conflicts. An external conflict takes place outside the character in the physical world—such as a fist fight, an argument with a friend, or running from the cops. An internal conflict takes place inside the narrator—such as struggling to get over a breakup, dealing with jealousy, or worrying how peers perceive you.

As you read, ask yourself “What is the character’s primary issue or challenge?” Look for how the author uses structure, tone, and word choice to highlight and develop and communicate a message about this conflict.

Identify the Tone

A text’s tone is the speaker’s attitude toward its subject matter—the situations, people, and topics that are taking place. It's similar to the text's mood and constantly changes throughout the text, or even throughout a passage.

Describe the tone using adjectives:

• To Kill a Mockingbird began with a lighthearted tone and progressed to a dark, tense tone as the plot continued.

• The article about bees used an informative, professional tone.

• My writing always has an informal tone, even when I want it to be academic.

• Hermann Hesse ends Siddhartha with a serene and beautiful tone.

Each sentence carries its own tone, causing a story’s tone to change subtly every few lines. As you read, notice how the tone changes constantly. Underline the words and phrases that controbute powerfully to the tone, describing it in your notes. If you notice a sudden shift in tone, underline the point where it changed and write a few words about how it changed.

Close Reading Strategies Make You a Better Reader

Close reading is more than just a class assignment—it’s an active reading method that helps you analyze and comprehend all texts. It will help you in class, on your own, and on standardized tests such as the SAT Reading and Writing portion.

Over time, practicing close reading and annotating will influence the way you approach all texts: You will find yourself previewing a book and thinking about the title, generating a purpose question, tracking the 5 Ws while you read, asking questions, observing the conflict, and noticing tone. Close reading helps you comprehend difficult texts, and it helps you write essays for class. It’s an all-purpose writing strategy.