Unit 1: Performing a Close Reading

ENGL 123 Kingsley

BLOG SET UP Wordpres.com Signing Up Choosing a theme Building your pages Extras

Explore Dashboard & Questions

Last Time Observe (notice & mark) Annotate (add your own notes/language) Ask Questions (learn to develop questions out of

your observations)

Group reading of poems handed out• Return to your groups (if you don’t have one, jump into one

and learn the poem!)• Take 10 minutes to rehearse your discussion/preentation• Be ready to present the poem, discuss what your group

observed/annotated, and be prepared to ask your questions to the course and lead the discussion on the poem.

Alain Locke’s “New Negro” Exchange your write up with the person next to

you (choose a partner).

What did they notice? Did you notice similar details/ideas/language/imagery?

Put an exclamation mark (!) ideas that you think are particularly insightful and/or well written. State why you think it is a good question.

Full class discussion to follow

Close Reading Practice: Fiction “City of Refuge” by Rudolph Fisher

Read the first paragraph• Observe (notice & mark)• Annotate (write into and around the text

with your own language)

Example

Shifting your observations into Questions

Creating a set of questions from an observation:• Description of the city• “jaws of a steam-shovel”

How does Fisher describe the city Gillis first steps into? What kind of language does he use? What does an image like the “jaws of a steam shovel” symbolize in terms of Gillis’ experience?

Observe/Annotate

Who/What/When/Where/Why/How/Does/Should/Could…etc.

Set up a series of questions…

Start with observation/comprehension/detai

l

Then move to implication

Then move to larger significance

Your turn Turn to the paragraph at the bottom

of page 57…”Gillis set down his tan-cardboard…”

Observe Annotate Create a set of questions from one of

your observations (A set should have 2-4 questions).

Shifting your questions into writing How does Fisher describe the city Gillis first steps

into? What kind of language does he use? What does an image like the “jaws of a steam shovel” symbolize in terms of Gillis’ experience?

Fisher describes New York City as an industrialized, terrifying machine. We see images of the station as stark, “white-walled,” and “impassable”. The subway corridors push the newly arrived passengers as a “steam-shovel” pushes dirt along its path. The steam shovel is a significant image in the description of the city because it reflects the industrialized landscape in which the “new negro,” in this case, Gillis, emerges. It is a hard, terrifying, and yet exciting environment.

Your Turn Use the set of questions you drafted

and answer them in one, FULL, paragraph.

Homework Continue to set up your personal blog Read (Observe, Annotate, Ask Questions)

• “Harlem” Survey Graphic• “Enter the New Negro” Alain Locke, Survey Graphic• “Making of Harlem” James Weldon Johnson, Survey

Graphic• “Black Workers and the City” Charles Johnson, Survey

Graphic Response: For each essay, create and answer

one set of questions based on your observations & annotations (4 paragraphs total)