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The Closer the Better? The Perils of an Exclusive Focus on Close Reading
Author(s) -
Brewer Meaghan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of adolescent and adult literacy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.73
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1936-2706
pISSN - 1081-3004
DOI - 10.1002/jaal.938
Subject(s) - reading (process) , scholarship , literacy , focus (optics) , mathematics education , pedagogy , psychology , literacy education , critical literacy , sociology , linguistics , political science , philosophy , physics , optics , law
Scholarship in literacy and education has depicted reading as an active, multidimensional, and complex process. However, an often more reductive version of reading, close reading, has been advocated frequently for use in secondary and postsecondary literacy classrooms. The author examines materials created to help teachers implement close reading strategies to demonstrate the New Critical assumptions that undergird some close reading pedagogies. The author ends by recommending genre analysis as a way for educators to broaden students’ conceptions of reading.