The article describes practices of "intensive reading" for post-qualitative inquiry, drawing on the work of Deleuze, with some examples from the author's own research. To read intensively is to experience the forward propulsion toward something not-yet-present. That forward momentum, and the fragmented path that it carves through the…

The aim of this article is to assist TESOL learners in effectively delving into professional literature for both their coursework and future teaching endeavors. It begins by addressing common challenges in critical reading faced by TESOL students, such as complex and technical language, varied writing styles and a lack of familiarity with TESOL…

Critical literacy requires that readers have both the ability and the deliberate inclination to think critically about texts of all types, meaningfully question their origin and purpose, and take action. Response to reading from a critical stance has typically been limited to discussion but has recently expanded to include other modes of response.…

To learn challenging content, middle school students are expected to read and comprehend complex text. This poses challenges for content-area teachers whose classes typically include students with reading difficulties and disabilities who have a variety of literacy needs. Some students struggle to decode text while many students struggle with…

The purpose of this article is to comment on ways that writing-reading connections can take place enhancing reading comprehension and composition. Drawing from a genre-based instructional approach, examples are provided to explain such connections in the process of (a) a rhetorical analysis conducted on writing prompts and prior to reading, (b)…

Elementary-level teacher Redford dispels the idea that instructional time should not be spent teaching content material because content is now Googleable. As research shows, background knowledge significantly influences basic comprehension, even in very young students; students need a core of background knowledge to decipher texts and understand…

Educators have long known that the Paideia Seminar format, an approach for close reading and class discussion, promotes critical thinking skills in young people and improves writing. Terry Roberts, director of the National Paideia Center, shows--with examples of actual Seminar dialogues--that these types of seminars also inspire creative and…

The spread of digital technology has prompted an increase in the amount of written text that gets produced and disseminated daily, together with a diversification of reading contexts and purposes. In this article, we propose that modern reading increasingly relies on readers' ability to set up and manage their own reading goals and decisions. We…

Close reading requires students to unpack the implicit relationships within and across sentences. The authors discuss three potential barriers to comprehension embedded within text that they have seen with their own students and with the teachers they have worked with: anaphoric relationships, connectives, and appositives. The authors begin each…

A key instructional goal of English language arts instruction is teaching students to read and interpret complex literary texts. This report reviews the literature on the development and pedagogy of literary analysis skills. It analyzes literary analysis skills as a "key practice," a bundle of disciplinary skills and strategies that form…

Close reading of poetry scaffolds readers and writers as they come to understand the form and function of poetry and transfer those skills to writing. In this teaching tip, the authors explain a way in which primary teachers can introduce close reading and move young students toward composing and presenting poetry.

Content area literacy and disciplinary literacy are umbrella terms that describe two approaches to literacy instruction embedded within different subject areas or disciplines. Under a content area literacy approach, students learn reading and writing processes that are common across disciplines. As part of content area literacy instruction,…

Embedding discipline-specific literacy instruction within social studies content can assist a variety of students, including those with reading difficulties, to build higher-level reading abilities, increase knowledge acquisition, and improve their overall content learning. Moreover, many state learning standards already address the need for…

The Common Core State Standards have placed more emphasis on the close reading of all texts, and have made a point of increasing the use of nonfiction in secondary English classrooms. In this article, the author describes an approach for implementing close reading of literary nonfiction. The approach comes from a small-scale classroom-based…

It is commonly accepted in the academy that developing a critical thinking capacity and related capabilities will make students more effective thinkers and writers, and that these are desirable traits for graduates to have no matter what path they take after graduation. While most academics agree that critical thinking is an essential component of…