Close Reading—Reading with a Purpose using Scrible

Enhance students' understanding and engagement with texts through a close reading activity using Scrible. This approach encourages students to delve deeply into a text, examining its language, structure, and meaning.

Objective: Students will use Scrible to conduct a close reading of a text, focusing on its key elements to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of its nuances.

Learning Outcome: Students will demonstrate an ability to analyze texts closely, identifying and interpreting literary elements, themes, and the author's purpose.

Close Reading Instructions:

Rationale: Close reading enables students to engage with a text on a granular level, enhancing their analytical skills and deepening their comprehension. Using Scrible's annotation and collaboration tools, students can visually organize their thoughts, share insights, and build a comprehensive understanding of the text's layers.

Activities:

• Selection and Preparation: Choose a text appropriate for your students' grade level. Provide a digital copy in Scrible for students to access. See this article to learn How to Add Sources to an Assignment.
• Identifying Key Elements: Instruct students to read the text closely, using Scrible's annotation tools to mark significant passages, words, or phrases. They should focus on elements like language use, tone, imagery, character development, or thematic elements.
• Annotation Layers: Guide students to use different colored annotations or tags to analyze various elements. For example, one color for thematic elements, another for character development, and so on.
• Interactive Marginalia: Encourage students to use Scrible's comment feature to note their thoughts, questions, or interpretations next to the corresponding text sections.
• Collaborative Analysis: Facilitate a group discussion or a collaborative document in Scrible where students can share and compare their findings, fostering a deeper collective understanding of the text.
• Synthesis and Reflection: Have students write a brief reflection or analysis in Scrible, summarizing their key findings and how their understanding of the text evolved through this close reading process.

By integrating Scrible's features with close reading strategies, students enhance their textual analysis skills and become proficient in using digital tools for educational purposes, preparing them for the 21st-century demands of digital literacy.

Standards Alignment:

• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, analyzing how specific word choices shape meaning and tone.
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.11-12.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly, as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.2 & RI.11-12.2: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

*If your school or district references standards other than Common Core for writing, please reach out, and our team can provide the Scrible standard alignment for your set of standards.