Close+reading

=Close reading: Carefully consider what the document says and the language used to say it. = Teachers can model this strategy with a brief (90 seconds) “think-aloud” while reading the document to students. Try to verbalize every thought that comes to mind, no matter how trivial, as you try to make meaning of the document's account. For example, you may notice interesting words or phrases (“I’ve never heard that expression before”), consider contextual clues about time, place or people (“Hmm, that may be a reference to…”) or question facts, opinions and perspectives (“I wonder if that’s what really happened?”). (Wineberg, S., //Thinking Like a Historian, retrieved from // [])

[|CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.2]  Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text. [|CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.2]  Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.
 * Key Ideas and Details **

[|CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.4] Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary describing political, social, or economic aspects of history/social science.
 * Craft and Structure**

== [|Standard 2 : Historical Comprehension] == B. Reconstruct the literal meaning of a historical passage. C. Identify the central question(s) the historical narrative addresses. D. Differentiate between historical facts and historical interpretations. E. Read historical narratives imaginatively.

The Stanford History Education Group (sheg) is another excellent resource for students and teachers who want to learn how to "do history". It has 76 lessons in U.S. History and 14 lessons in World history to engage students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features sets of primary documents designed for groups of students with diverse reading skills and abilities (retrieved from []). This particular link is to the Partition of India, a World History activity. It provides examples of questions that would promote close reading for the Partition of India. http://sheg.stanford.edu/upload/V3LessonPlans/India%20Partition%20Lesson%20Plan.pdf

Historical Thinking matters is the site for learning how to do history. This site uncovers the thinking process that historians go through when they do history. The site has four inquiry activity. Each activity has a lead question and a set of sources. There are questions to help students do close reading as well as examples of historians thinking about sources and students modeling the process in a think aloud model. This is a great link for teachers and students in the Spanish American War activity. It p rovides resources in which there are examples of historians doing close reading and other historians analyzing their thought process. It is a wonderful example of how historians do close reading. http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/spanishamericanwar/0/inquiry/main/resources/2/

This link provides another example of a historian demonstrating close reading and another historian dissecting the process the previous historian went through to come up with their hypothesis. This is from the Scopes Trial activity. http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/scopestrial/0/inquiry/main/resources/48/