ABSTRACT
Close reading is purposeful re-readings of a short piece of complex text. Each reading, or reading cycle, includes a question or task to complete, which will bring the reader closer and closer to a deeper understanding of the text. Emerging from the exegesis of sacred texts, I. A. Richards utilized close reading for academic works in the 1920s at Cambridge University. His work eventually came to the United States and filtered down to high schools, middle schools, and later, elementary schools. Close reading became associated with the New Criticism movement, which advocated that text alone determines meaning – to the exclusion of the author's intent or the reader's reaction to it. By the 1970s, Louise Rosenblatt offered an alternative theory in which the text bears no meaning without the presence of the reader. It is, in her estimation, the reader who brings meaning to the text. The prevailing viewpoint reverted back to the tenets of New Criticism with the 2010 Common Core State Standards that swept the United States. Arriving at a critical juncture as students face increasingly complex print and digital text, close reading has again become a powerful method for students to examine texts in a meaningful way.
