Close Reading in the Secondary Classroom : (Improve Literacy, Reading Comprehension, and Critical-Thinking Skills)

Close-reading strategies help students develop the literacy and critical-thinking skills essential for the rest of their lives. Close Reading in the Secondary Classroom offers high school and middle school educators extensive guidance on how to introduce close-reading strategies to students and help them improve their reading comprehension skills and critical thinking. Learn how to select close-reading examples and passages, elicit deeper question formation, facilitate positive classroom discussion, and assess your students' reading comprehension skills and literacy progress.

Use research-based close-reading instruction strategies to increase student literacy and critical-thinking skills:

• Understand the importance of close reading, prereading, and post-reading activities.
• Learn how to choose appropriate literary or informational texts for close reading.
• Pass on tools necessary for literary analysis and annotating text.
• Develop thought-provoking questions and discussion that deepen text analysis and reading comprehension skills.
• Assess students' creative- and critical-thinking skills.

Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Research and Theory
Chapter 2: Prereading
Chapter 3: Reading Twice and Annotating
Chapter 4: Generating Questions and Reading Analytically
Chapter 5: Discussing as a Class or Analyzing Individually, and Using Processing Activities
Chapter 6: Planning and Assessing Close Reading
Epilogue
Appendix A: Answers to Comprehension Questions
Appendix B: Extended Examples of Close Reading

Jeff Flygare is a former classroom teacher, English department chair, professional developer, and building-level leader. During his twenty-six-year career teaching high school English, he taught nearly every course in the department. Jeff developed classes in mythology, Shakespeare, philosophy, and comparative religions, and worked with social studies colleagues to create an interdisciplinary class called world studies, which he team-taught successfully for seventeen years. He taught Advanced Placement (AP) English classes for twenty-one years and served as an AP English literature reader and table leader for Educational Testing Service for many years.

Jeff also has a strong theatrical background, working first as an actor and then as a director at a major regional theater company in Colorado. He directed many high school productions, both traditional and Shakespearean, as well. As a Marzano Research associate, Jeff travels around the United States and across the world to work with educators on topics involving curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

He holds a bachelor's degree in English from the State University of New York-Buffalo, a master's degree in English from the University of Colorado-Denver, and a master's degree in education with an endorsement in gifted education from the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs.