When you engage students in close reading of an informational text excerpt, you must study that excerpt thoroughly. I find that I have to read and reread carefully, keeping the purpose for close reading in mind, doing my own close reading (line by line) and taking notes. I can use these notes later as I teach, but just taking the notes helps me understand the excerpt better.

Below are two images of my notes, taken as I studied to lead a close reading lesson with 4-6th grade students. FYI – I chose the excerpts based on the teachers’ (whose classrooms I was visiting) guiding questions for their current unit of study.