Close Reading and Analysis in all College Courses
By: Maggie Ludlam
Students beginning their college careers often wonder why they are required to take writing courses. They tend to see a composition course as a gateway exercise having little to do with their futures in cybersecurity, health care, or technology. However, as a means to an end, they apply themselves with grim determination to endure the required assignments in order to achieve their career goals. Persistence and grit enable them to submit the rhetorical analysis and the academic argument, much to their relief—and a measure of pride. But even then, some students doubt they would ever again need to analyze the rhetoric of a difficult text, given their technical environments. However, the exact opposite is the case—as the close reading required for rhetorical analysis is a skill which promotes success in personal life skills, as well as career performance.
Too often, students’ reading experiences do not prepare them for close reading and analysis. Peter Elbow (1995) comments: “Reading may look passive…[however, it] is a deeply active process of exploration.” Close reading is, in fact, a “thoughtful, critical analysis of a text that focuses on significant details or patterns in order to develop a deep, precise understanding of the text’s form, craft, meanings….” (Burke, 2017). In close reading, students learn to move beyond the literal into the interpretive level, which promotes critical thinking (Robinson & Good,1987, as cited in Baki, 2024). This kind of reading and the analysis which follows strengthens career and life skills, as in the following list of job skills: problem-solving, making inferences, creative thinking, critical analysis, and decision-making (Bolat, 2017, as cited in Baki, 2024). Because these skills are increasingly in demand in the 21st Century, students must prepare for the workplace through the creative and independent analysis required in close reading.
Additionally, since close reading and the analysis of difficult text renders a high yield of competencies, it should be taught at higher levels of education. Across the curriculum, students need to struggle with difficult text “even at the university level” (Knight, 2021, as cited in Baki, 2024). The most effective educators deliver this content with direct instruction (Knight, 2021, as cited in Baki, 2024) as they monitor the close reading skills of students who must process difficult text. Some of the reading skills required to conduct a close reading include the following: the reading pace; combing through the text to identify patterns or subtleties of diction and annotating the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of these patterns and subtleties; and making analytical, interpretive claims about the effects of the language in the text (Barnet et al., 2023).
Take, for example, a selection from Tom Hanks’ 2023 Harvard graduation speech (NBC, 2023; Harvard Press Release, 2023):
Text: Truth, though, oh, truth, truth feeds up in the high country, as elusive as serenity, yet as certain as the North Star and the Southern Cross.
Close Reading: In close reading, the reader reads slowly and inspects the word choice (Barnet et al., 2023). Why does Tom Hanks use the word “feeds”? In what respect can one say that Truth “feeds up in the high country”? And what is the “high country”?
Initial analysis: Truth is elusive (“as elusive as serenity”). Most people relate to the word serenity—wanting to get away to the mountains or the beach—to sit on a front porch and watch the sunset. But how is Truth as elusive as serenity? And again, what is the high country?
What if the high country is, metaphorically, where the lowly, baser urges of humanity is not allowed to thrive because Truth reigns there? Would it be a leap in logic to say that Truth is allowed to thrive in the high country because it feeds on integrity, empathy, and all the higher forms of human behavior?
In order to test the previous concepts as a working theory, one must examine the context within the speech to test for consistency (Seyler & Brizee, 2019). Anyone can make up something reasonable. But analysis must remain true to the message of the speaker (or writer).
Context: Truth is mined at the intersections of our chosen behaviors and our fixed habits in our personal boundaries. Truth has synonyms such as honesty, honor, transparency, and yet the common practice of so many is to play fast and loose with those very words.
Confirmation: Tom Hanks’ use of the words honesty, honor, transparency confirm the initial analysis that the high country is where these higher human attributes thrive. And now the analyst can add the analogy of the North Star and the Southern Cross. Truth…as certain as the North Star and the Southern Cross. These have remained fixed points in the heavens for mankind to align his chosen path, while the other constellations shift and rotate across the sky—much like the shifting ideologies that rotate through the earth in defiance of the Truth.
One may ask: “Why put students through this kind of analysis in the college classroom?”
One answer is simply that paying close attention to the rhetoric of a speaker or writer helps a student to develop a life skill—a skill which can prevent the likelihood of becoming a victim of deceit and abuse. Students develop a discerning ear to hear more than the actual words being used—to hear the message the world so often delivers.
Studies show that in addition to the job skills which further a student’s career, the practice of close reading and textual analysis improves essential life skills (Lapp et al., 2015, as cited in Baki, 2024): inference, decision-making, broader perspective (Shanmugam, 2020, as cited in Baki, 2024). Further studies by Baki (2024) found that preservice teachers of the close reading strategy improved their respect for differences, self-awareness, empathy, decision-making and communication skills.
Baki (2024) concludes from her study that instructors cannot assume students come to them with highly developed close reading skills. Furthermore, these skills are so instrumental in strengthening students’ careers and personal lives that instructors must include the close reading and analysis in their curriculum. In analyzing difficult text slowly and closely, one learns to avoid passivity and to hear what speakers say, what they don’t say, and the shades of meaning in their diction. These are vital skills for everyone in every career field—to be aware of the speaker, their message, and the subtleties of their rhetoric.
References
Baki, Y. (2024). The impact of close reading strategies on individual innovativeness and life skills: preservice teachers. Behavioral Sciences, 14(9), 816. https://doi.org/ 10.3390 /bs14090816
Barnet, S., Bedau, H., & O’Hara, J. (2023). Current issues and enduring questions: A guide to critical thinking and argument. Bedford / St Martins’s Macmillan Learning.
Burke, B. (2017). A close look at close reading: Scaffolding students with complex text. Newspapers in Education. https://nieonline.com/tbtimes/downloads/CCSS_reading.pdf
Elbow, P. (1995). Breathing life into the text. In A. Young and T. Fulwiler (Eds.), When writing teachers teach literature. Heinemann.
Harvard University Media Relations. (2023). Press release. Harvard University commencement remarks from Tom Hanks. https://www.harvard.edu/media-relations/2023/05/25/tom-hanks-commencement-speech/
NBC News. (2023, May 25). Tom Hanks delivers Harvard University’s commencement speech [video]. YouTube.
Seyler, D. U. & Brizee, A. (2019). Read, reason, write: An argument text and reader (12th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.