ABSTRACT
Close reading proves to be an effective instructional tool for helping students to access complex text. More than that, however, it possesses the potential to increase the level of rigor in classrooms. Think back to Chapter 2 and its discussion of the history of close reading. Its origin centers in religious texts as readers were expected to read and re-read, searching for a greater truth than the words on the page. This concept holds true today as students use purposeful re-readings of short pieces of text to probe deeper into a text's meaning and critically analyze its content.
