Look for patterns in the things you've noticed about the text-repetitions, contradictions, similarities. As I proceeded on my way along the gully, like a vast impossible shadow, I realized that in the world of spider I did not exist.Ģ. All outside was irrational, extraneous, at best raw material for spider. Spider was circumscribed by spider ideas its universe was spider universe. A pencil point was an intrusion into this universe for which no precedent existed. As the vibrations slowed, I could see the owner fingering her guidelines for signs of struggle. Anything that had brushed claw or wing against that amazing snare would be thoroughly entrapped. The web, plucked by its menacing occupant, began to vibrate until it was a blur. Down one spoke of the web ran a stout ribbon of gossamer on which she could hurry out to investigate her prey.Ĭurious, I took a pencil from my pocket and touched a strand of the web.
She knew the tug of wind, the fall of a raindrop, the flutter of a trapped moth's wing. Her extended claws could feel every vibration throughout that delicate structure. It was her universe, and her senses did not extend beyond the lines and spokes of the great wheel she inhabited. I had come up a long gulch looking for fossils, and there, just at eye level, lurked a huge yellow-and-black orb spider, whose web was moored to the tall spears of buffalo grass at the edge of the arroyo. It happened far away on a rainy morning in the West. I once received an unexpected lesson from a spider. It's from his essay called "The Hidden Teacher.". Here's a sample passage by anthropologist and naturalist Loren Eiseley. When we respond to a text in this way, we not only force ourselves to pay close attention, but we also begin to think with the author about the evidence-the first step in moving from reader to writer. "Annotating" means underlining or highlighting key words and phrases-anything that strikes you as surprising or significant, or that raises questions-as well as making notes in the margins. Read with a pencil in hand, and annotate the text. And, as with inductive reasoning, close reading requires careful gathering of data (your observations) and careful thinking about what these data add up to.ġ. What we're basically talking about here is inductive reasoning: moving from the observation of particular facts and details to a conclusion, or interpretation, based on those observations.
The second step is interpreting your observations. Either way, making these observations constitutes the first step in the process of close reading. Your aim may be to notice all striking features of the text, including rhetorical features, structural elements, cultural references or, your aim may be to notice only selected features of the text-for instance, oppositions and correspondences, or particular historical references. You may focus on a particular passage, or on the text as a whole. When you close read, you observe facts and details about the text. But most essays, especially academic essays, begin with a close reading of some kind of text-a painting, a movie, an event-and usually with that of a written text. Of course, the writer's personal experience may occasionally come into the essay, and all essays depend on the writer's own observations and knowledge. The process of writing an essay usually begins with the close reading of a text.
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