Supports for Close Reading

When it comes to students reading challenging texts, having the right support can make the difference between giving up and persisting.  

Built-in supports for middle and high school readers      

• Primary documents have been modified or adapted to balance authenticity and challenge with accessibility for readers at the middle school level

• Embedded glossaries help students build academic vocabulary and understand challenging historical terms

• Context slides help provide the background knowedge students need to understand and contextualize the documents

Questions and prompts that model historical reading

Text-specific questions for each document help students read like historians. Over time, students develop these habits of mind: 

• Sourcing – asking when a document was written, who wrote it and why, who the audience was, etc.

• Contextualizing – thinking about was going on at the time a document was created and how this influenced the document – and vice versa

• Reading closely – noticing a document’s structure and language and how each shapes it’s meaning

• Gathering evidence – finding textual support for the author's position or claims

• Stating the big idea – identifying an important idea in the document and finding the evidence for it