"What is Close Reading?": A Literary Guide for English Students and Teachers
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- čas přidán 12. 06. 2024
- What is close reading in literature? How does it relate to the Common Core Standards of Learning? What are some strategies for employing close reading in your own literary analyses? Senior Instructor Clare Braun answers these questions and distinguishes close reading from other kinds of analysis in this short lesson. The video is designed to help high school and college English students make meaningful arguments about the literature they read.
The video is sponsored by the School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University and by Oregon State E-Campus. For more discussions of literary topics and essay writing tips, please subscribe to the free SWLF CZcams Channel or visit liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf
Spanish subtitles are now available for this video. To access these subtitles click on the settings icon in the video.
Timestamps
0:00 Close Reading Definition(s)
1:38 Close Reading Practices
3:57 What Isn't Close Reading?
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If you enjoyed the video, please let us know by hitting the like button, asking a question, or sharing your thoughts on close reading. Thanks for watching, everybody!
damn this is actually pretty easy to understand, thanks lady in a library for this easy explanation
You're very welcome, @Banana-hl4cn! We hope you find the other videos in this series useful as well!
hi,i'm a university student from Morocco,and i enjoy the content your channel provides,i just hope you do a video in which you explain how to analyze a poem using a literary theory...😊
Thanks so much for the suggestion Abdelhakim! We're thinking of starting up a literary theory series down the road, and this comment gives us an incentive to pursue a new project.
Wowwwww... Maam... Just wonderful......the way you explained...And use of verbal & non-verbal communication❤❤....Love ur explanation... It is very helpful for me.. I hope others are also enjoyed this❤❤thank u maam🙏❤
Thanks so much, @leemusic2759! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as wel!
Very helpful 😊
Thanks so much, Valerie! We hope you find the other videos in our series useful as well!
I've never heard of close reading until this vid (maybe I should've paid closer attention in class). What is the difference between close reading and just analyzing a text (this bring to mind literature analysis)? Or is it that the latter is an umbrella term that includes close reading?
Great question, Nesly! As Prof. Braun talks about in her video, close reading is one type of literary analysis among many. We can use literature to make many kinds of arguments--some of which go way beyond the boundaries of what is on the page itself. For example, you could use literature to better understand a particular historical moment--what people were thinking at the time in which it was written or set. In that case, the analysis would move from what is on the page to the historical conditions around it, which would also be analyzed. Or you could use literature as a way to talk about big ideas like gender or race or economics or climate change. In those instances, the analysis would also move back and forth between these subjects and the literary text that is modeling something the author of the essay wants us to think about those subjects.
Hi. Can we get examples of texts that can be used for close reading
Sure thing, nombusomabuza6230! As Prof Braun suggests, nearly all of the other videos in our "Guide to Literary Terms" are "close readings" of a variety of different kinds of texts--novels, short stories, plays, poems, films, and songs.
Please make a video on close reading with examples of prose or verse passages.
Thanks for the suggestion, Peace & Pleasure!
Excellent!
Thanks so much, Lightning Scorpion! We hope you enjoy the other videos in our series as well!
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@@securityscorpion8687 Excellent!
So close reading is basically when I'm trying to make sense of a particular text based on the text only & not the Author Function ?
Yes! Close reading is looking at the relationship between form and content in a given work while largely leaving aside questions of author and context. It is a useful approach to literary analysis, but certainly not the only one. Thanks for the comment!
@@SWLFso basically new criticism?
@@salomesongput New Criticism very much lives on in close reading practices of the present, though it is now often hybridized with other approaches to literary analysis now. Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
Can't we say that close reading is critical analysis and understand the surface as well the hidden meaning of a piece of literature?
Great question, Shah! Critical analysis is a more general term for a variety of ways that a literary text might be examined. Close reading is a kind of critical analysis that looks only at the text itself, rather than situating it within a historical or philosophical context.
no
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We don't worry about the negative comments, eliseross6885. And if you keep watching, we'll keep making them. Thanks so much for your support!
Strange that you started with close reading as a way of uncovering "underlying ideologies" (just as students talk about how English classes teach them to find "hidden meanings"). But I'm glad this focus shifted -- and all but disappeared -- as you moved into the text-centered (HOW-centered) nature of close analytical reading.
Thanks for the comment, Lit Crit! We certainly aren't fans of the "hidden meaning" model of literary interpretation either, but those ideas (call them themes, if you will) are at the heart of close reading as well. We often discover them through observation and inference, though, rather than excavation. Thanks for keeping the conversation going!
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Thanks so much for your kind words!
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Hi!
unfortunately, close reading as analysis has gone out the window and today's academics are leaping straight to critical analysis before having any literal understanding of the text. the main thing most academics today don't do today is to first stay within the context of the reading itself in order to build evidence.
Thanks for the comment, @Tomorrowandtomorrowandtomorrow. We would say that (at least in our experience) close reading remains a valuable and popular approach to the study of literature. As Prof. Braun suggests, most scholarly arguments we encounter use close reading alongside MANY other critical approaches to create complex, exciting, innovative arguments. Thanks for pushing the conversation forward!