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Sunday, July 17, 2016

Close Reading for Complex Texts

I just finished reading Guided Highlighted Reading by Weber, Nelson, and Schofield.  It's a great addition to my Close Reading strategies I've already gathered.  This book focuses on techniques for complex nonfiction texts, such as historical documents and classic literature, such as the works of Mark Twain.  I gained some valuable techniques I will be applying to our science articles as well.


Guided Highlighted Reading


This book gives instructions for using complex texts to teach the following strategies:
Summary
Author's Craft
Vocabulary
Multiple-Choice Questions
Common Sense Text (including vocabulary and Cloze assessments)

One of the things I plan to use them for is Guided Highlighted Reading of online texts. Essentially, all you need to do is the following:
1:  Find a text online and copy/paste it as a Word document/Google Doc OR simply type up a text you want to use and save it that way.
2:  Number the paragraphs or lines and save the document on Google Drive.
3.  Provide the link to students or share it with them on Google Drive.
4.  Have students use the highlighting tools on Google Add-ons to highlight (see picture below)
5. Have students share the link/document with you (see picture)


How to highlight/annotate online texts using Google Drive




I also plan to use the strategies I learned from the book in conjunction with my Close Reading in Middle School directions.


Enriching early finishers in middle school with Close Reading articles




As you can see in the picture below, we didn't have an orange marker so we just colored over it in red and used that instead.



Close Reading/ Guided Highlighted Reading of print texts


I like to laminate the first few articles so they are reusable and I can practice with all my classes.   It also allows students  to use dry-erase markers to annotate directly on the article, just as the would with highlighters or colored pencils on a paper copy.  This is also is a form of differentiation for students who do not yet have the skills to highlight a text online.


Close Reading/ Guided Highlighted Reading of print texts




Do you have any other strategies for teaching Close Reading/Guided Highlighted Reading of online or print texts?  I'd love to hear about them!











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