a close reading activity

A lesson on annotation and close reading at the sentence level

Hello all and happy Sunday!

Firstly: a sunny-warm welcome to the many new subscribers who have joined us for The Age of Innocence read-a-long! You can review all the details for the reading group right here.

For Wednesday, May 8, all you need to do is obtain your copy of the novel and read chapter 1. (It’s just a few pages!)

Sentence-level close readings

As we embark on a close reading together — and as we all dive into our summer reading lists at large — I thought it’d be fun to share one of my favorite ways to closely read: sentence analysis. So today’s short essay is a departure from the typical close readings and is more of a miniature writing or annotation lesson.

It builds on a previous annotation lesson I’ve shared: a mini-lesson on how to closely read a paragraph in a novel to help you identify themes or patterns within that paragraph that you can map to your reading of the book-at-large.

Today, we’re pushing those close reading skills even deeper with an activity that helps you …