Path of a Pre-Service Teacher...: WOW Factor: Close Reading with Text Dependent Questions

Close reading is a critical analysis of a text that focuses on significant details in order to develop a deep, precise understanding of the text's structure, craft, meanings, etc. It directs the reader's attention to the text itself. Students can close read a text over a period of days to fully understand and grasp its content.

The three tiers of close reading are:

Author's point of view, vocabulary, text structure - How does the text work?
Main idea, details - What does the text say?
Inferences, synthesis, critiques- What does the text mean?

The purpose of close reading is for students to interact with the text. By asking thoughtful and purposeful questions, like the ones highlighted above, students are better able to identify the author's craft and main idea and look for evidence to support their inferences. These questions are called text-dependent questions.

Text-dependent questions are ones that can only be answered by referring back to the text. The image below represents the steps from part to whole. Students would begin at "general understandings."

The steps for creating text-dependent questions are:

Identifying the core understandings and key ideas of the text - start by identifying the key insights that you want the students to understand from the text, keeping an eye on the major points in order to construct successful questions.
Start small to build confidence - the opening questions should be ones that help orientate the students to the text and be sufficiently specific enough for them to answer so that they can gain confidence to tackle more difficult questions later on.
Target vocabulary and text structure - locate key text structures and the most powerful academic words in the text that are connected to the key ideas and understandings, and craft questions that make these connections.
Tackle through sections head-on - find sections of the text that will present the greatest difficulty and craft questions that support students in mastering these sections (these could be sections with difficulty syntax, particularly dense information, tricky transitions or places that offer a variety of possible inferences).
Create coherent sequences of text-dependent questions - the sequence of questions should not be random, but should build toward more coherent understanding and analysis to ensure that students learn how to stay focused on the text to bring them to a gradual understanding of its meaning.
Identify the standards that are being addressed - take notice of what standards are being addressed in the series of questions and decide if any other standards are suited to being a focus for this text (forming additional questions that exercise those standards).
Create the culminating assessment - develop a culminating activity around the key idea or understandings identified earlier that reflects (a) mastery of one or more of the standards, (b) involves writing, (c) is structured to be completed by students independently.

Examples of text-dependent questions for the three tiers could include:

Author's craft

The author chose to use lists or other features. Does this make the text easier to read or more complex?
Using the illustration and text on page ____, describe _________.

Main idea/details

What words or phrases does the author use to help you locate the main idea?
How does the word(s) _________ tell you more about _______? Explain your answer.

Inferences/critiques

After reading this section, what stood out to you?
This reminds me of ___________ within the text or beyond the text.
How do the illustrations, captions, etc. help you infer _________about the plot? Why might the author have done this?

The following video explains using stems to create text-dependent questions