The Close Reading Routine That Changed How My Students Read

Want to get straight to the annotations? 9:09 — Read 1: Build a Clear Picture of the Setting 15:14 — Read 2: Track the Road's Movement and Personality 26:08 — Read 3: Study Word Choice and Author Intent -- In this video, I model the close reading process that became the workhorse of my middle school reading classroom. Using the opening paragraphs of Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting, I walk through three reads that move students from basic comprehension to analysis: clarifying essential vocabulary, tracing patterns in the text, analyzing a shift in tone, and building toward an independent written response. Along the way, I explain what I model, what students do, how I annotate the passage, how I use the worksheet to check for understanding, and why each layer matters. Resources: Passage + annotated exemplar: https://lukemorinliteracy.com/tuck-cl... Student worksheet + exemplar: https://lukemorinliteracy.com/tuck-cl... Tone wheel: https://lukemorinliteracy.com/tuck-cl... The Middle School Literacy Project: https://middleschoolliteracyproject.org In Practice: https://lukemorinliteracy.com/in-prac... In this video: 0:00 — The Workhorse of My Reading Classroom 0:49 — What Does Explicit Instruction Look Like in Reading? 2:06 — Why Comprehension is Messy to Teach 2:53 — My Classroom Revelation 5:01 — What I Mean by Close Reading 5:22 — Whole Class Novels Raise the Stakes 6:12 — Why Novel Openings Matter 7:34 — Overview: The Three Reads 8:56 — Read 1: Build a Clear Picture of the Setting 12:48 — Debrief: Why These Vocabulary Words? 15:14 — Read 2: Track the Road's Movement and Personality 25:03 — Debrief: Moving From Noticings to Analysis 25:33 — A Note on Pacing the Lesson 26:08 — Read 3: Study Word Choice and Author Intent 37:54 — What Made This a Close Read?