A Close-Reading Tool For The Classroom
and why I'm doubling-down on the value of curiosity this year
Near the end of each school year, we take some time in my classes to reflect on each of our four classroom values—growth, curiosity, perspective and community—followed by a collective debrief around (a) how students feel we did as a class in living up to each value and (b) what changes need to be made (including to the values and aligned core beliefs themselves) going forward.
Most of the actionable feedback that I got from these discussions this past year was around the value of curiosity and its aligned core belief: We are curious as learners, exploring new ideas and striving for depth in our work.
Some of the things students wrote on their feedback forms after discussing:
as the year goes on the curiosity can tend to go down a little bit as people lose motivation
a lot of the time people were just waiting to hear what you had to say about maybe a section in a book or a poem.
having more people share their ideas whole class could help with this curiosity and exploration.
I had already anticipated this a bit in my own end-of-year reflection before reading the feedback, too, noting how some of the classes sometimes struggled to move from group discussion to whole-class discourse—even classes that on paper were performing well academically. This is one of the reasons I went out and got Matthew R. Kay’s book Prompting Deeper Discussions: A Teacher's Guide to Crafting Great Questions. (Note: I also just had a chance to interview him about this book, a conversation that should be out next week!)
But underneath the talking part of this core value in our classroom, I actually think a system that had previously been quite successful in our room in recent years had stalled out a bit this past school year: our TQE system of close-reading, adapted from the incredible Marisa Thompson.
Reflecting on the year, this didn’t really surprise me: when a system is going well, I tend to shift my attention to other places and focuses in the classroom, and what was previous a strength (including in student surveys!) can easily become the new area of growth.
One of my goals this summer, then? To revamp the way I introduce and build a system around close-reading and annotation—in design as well as fidelity to that system in the first quarter of the year—as well as going one step further to lean on writing as a form of thinking with a new system I’m going to try out: WHS (what-how-so) responses.
In both written and video form, I wanted to walk through the “TQE revamp” for me along with the new writing response experiment, and as always you are welcome to make a copy of the template and adapt for your classroom if it’s helpful!
(The embedded videos are also available on our YouTube page for The Broken Copier, too, if that is easier to access or you need access to video captions!)
The TQE Annotations (close-reading stage)
The introduction of the TQE system (Thoughts, Questions and Epiphanies) of close-reading from Marisa Thompson has been very impactful in our classroom, but this past year I did not do as well at introducing and centering it in a way that allowed all students to get on board. Students who got it very much got it, but I realize now that I need to do a better job going into this new school year at making sure the foundation of this system is wider as well as stronger—especially since we do so many other things using TQE within our classroom.
Here are my plans for a better TQE foundation in our classroom this year:
Consistent language for each step, with the “I noticed” (thoughts), “I wonder” (questions) and “I realize” (epiphanies) also affixed to each desk decal for easy reference, which I’ve included an image of later in this post.
Better step-by-step implementation, including the use of sentence starters and examples for each stage of the process in our initial weeks. Reflecting back, I recognize also that the examples need to shift given the text, as TQE annotations for a poem will look different than an excerpt from a novel, etc.
More emphasis on debriefing and reflecting at the end of our TQE annotation experiences, offering students the opportunity to consider how their own annotations compare to those of classmates and how they can improve in future experiences.
One other thing I want to be mindful of: the balance between intentional, consistent reliance on this system as well as the potential burn-out of doing the same thing all the time.
As mentioned in the video, I am going to design some more-narrow activities (example: reading a text with a questions-only lens before collaboratively debriefing and ranking the questions we collected whole-class) while at the same time making sure that I also don’t let a close-reading mindset keep students from the momentum and joy of reading.
Sometimes as a class we just need to read and keep moving without much (if any!) close-reading and annotation—and I need to consider this balance as the year unfolds.
The WHS Response (writing stage)
Whereas the TQE annotations will just be getting a revamp in our classroom, in reflecting on the past year I also realized that even when students were successful with their close-reading annotations, this success didn’t necessarily mean they could confidently move into writing or discussion of their interpretations.
This is why I’m going to also try what I’ll call a WHS Response in our classroom:
What: students are asked to paraphrase or summarize the text or excerpt they are focusing on, which also helps them confirm their own “above-the-iceberg” understanding of the text. Not only is this deceptively hard with some of our more rigorous texts, but failing to have a solid grasp of the “what” can unravel the later stages of interpretation, too—and this step aims to address this potential gap.
How: students are asked to analyze choices they noticed by the author in the text or excerpt, preferably with textual evidence. As noted in the video above, this is something we will develop through a range of practice with different “choice” lenses (example: key words/phrases, shifts, or interesting contrasts) and this “how” step will also be used to develop analytical writing skills with textual evidence.
So: students finally add their own evaluation of a “big idea” this text or excerpt is getting at along with their reflection on why it matters (or if it matters!), with the goal of injecting more of their own opinion and voice—something that too often gets left out of academic writing, I worry. (I think this step is especially important for students to build confidence in sharing their interpretation with others, too!)
Confession: even as I type all of this out, I recognize that this feels like a lot!
Yet in planning ahead for this, I fully intend to build this from the ground up in our classroom piece-by-piece, starting with practicing and developing skills with paraphrase and summary and then moving forward once we’re ready. I also plan on providing different exemplars for students to explore for both the “How” and “So” steps, as the last thing I want is for students to feel locked into one particular path or format.
Given that this will be a new system, too, I will try to use it in different ways: sometimes as a follow-up to our annotations and other times in place of them; sometimes as a mini-WHS (just 1 sentence apiece) and other times with just a targeted stage (even jumping right to the “So” at times). If I’m going to experiment, after all, I’m going to need to actually experiment.
Ultimately, though, far too often last year students who had fantastic annotations would hit a wall when moving into writing their own interpretation and, perhaps more importantly, sharing that interpretation aloud in discussion with peers.
But if that student has already prepared a WHS response? I don’t think that wall will be nearly as difficult to scale—not to mention the many ways I’ve already started imagining how it can be a great vehicle for developing different writing muscles students will need along the way.
A System Lens and a Value Lens
At the end of the day, I don’t think either of these new approaches are revolutionary.
We have reinvented the wheel on what it means to read and respond to texts in our ELA classrooms countless times over the years, and it’s not like education needs yet another new label for something that already exists.
That is not what this intends to be.
Rather, this is just what I’m going to try out for my own classroom—and I’m sharing this because I want to continue to be transparent with The Broken Copier about my own practices as a teacher: what is going well, yes, but alongside that what I am trying to improve upon.
Furthermore, I find it really important as a teacher to frame the individual activities in our classroom as part of an intentional system and to frequently reflect on how that system aligns with our classroom values.
As I’ve said many times before, I love TQE annotations in part because of the way they can become a system in the classroom and my hope is (fingers crossed!) that WHS responses can become very much a part of our framework, too.
Two systems that can live alongside and, when possible, reinforce each other.
More importantly, though, is that this shift on my part as a teacher is in direct response to student reflections at the end of this past school year—not only around a need to prioritize our core belief around curiosity but to then take a step forward in terms of the whole-class discussions we have as a classroom community.
These reflections from students mirror my own interpretation of an obstacle of our classroom last year: along with very-large class sizes, I think one of the biggest reasons students didn’t not want to speak up whole-class is that they didn’t feel confident in what they have to say.
And I believe that leaning into more writing as a way to build that confidence could be a potential solution.
Will this work?
I hope so! But of course each year is its own year, each classroom its own classroom, and inevitably a year from now I’ll be recognizing another system that needs revamping.
There is no finish line in this work. (Which, admittedly, is why I love it so much.)
And this is another one of the reasons I selfishly enjoy sharing posts like this on The Broken Copier, as it adds motivation to hold myself accountable to not only intentional implementation but also authentic reflection as I write about what happened, how it worked and didn’t work, and the “so what?” going forward.
Which, I think, is reminder for me of how valuable these interpretation practices can be beyond the classroom, too.
A Couple Other Beginning-of-Year Resources!
For those returning back to their classrooms soon, I wanted to share two resources that I have found incredibly helpful this summer before I get into the specific details and logistics of preparing the classroom for yet another school year:
A Vision Document for Your Classroom - This post lays out my process of creating a classroom vision, including explanations and look-for’s for each, along with a sample of my own from last year as well as a template to create your own. (Also: I’m working on my 2025-26 vision right now!)
Your New? Your Better? Your Stronger? - Rather than feeling restricted by required forms and SMART goals, I find it much better to keep it simple with a three-fold set of goals: [1] What do I want to try out? [2] What growth area do I want to improve upon? [3] What strength do I want to lean into? Just like the previous post, there is a template here to create your own along with my own example!
I also would add: if you want to share what your own goals, shifts, and hopes are for your school year, feel free to add them in the comments! What are you planning on doing differently this year as a teacher or educator? How do you plan on making that happen? And, of course, so what? Why does it matter to you and your classroom?
As always, thank you for reading and, if you are on your way back to your classroom already, I wish you the best of starts to another school year!
Note: featured image for post from Pexels.com, taken by Yaroslav Shuraev
Thank you so much for sharing your reflection, your students’ reflections, and the actionable steps you are taking to level up in these areas. It is a model of personal growth that is empowering and encouraging. I really needed this inspiration as I begin my preplanning.