Blake Wilder

Teaching Artifact: Close Reading Paper

The assignment sheet that I have prepared for the Close Reading Paper illustrates how I focus on
specific skills to minimize student anxiety, how I integrate assignment components with class
discussions, and how I emphasize connections between course goals and specific assignments. I
first encountered a Close Reading Paper as an assignment in Spring 2010 when I observed an
American Literature survey course taught by Jim Phelan as part of my first departmental
teaching apprenticeship. I understood that the limiting parameters of the assignment were
conceived as a productive constraint, but I also recognized that student anxiety about how to
proceed might make the assignment more constraining than productive. The sections that I have
added (Objectives, Requirements, and an extended example) are intended to clarify both the
how and the why of the assignment, indicating to students the steps they should to follow to
complete the assignment and what I hope they will learn from doing so.
The first prose section is a fairly standard introduction of the assignment. With some very minor
alterations, it could stand alone as the assignment prompt. But the introduction alone would not
minimize student anxiety as I hope to do with the assignment sheet as whole. Instead I use the
introduction as the beginning of a narrative that frames the rest of the assignment sheet.
Comments about the goals are extended in the Objectives section, and should and will
statements are more precisely enumerated in the Requirements section. The introduction is
also carefully written to mimic my classroom persona: the parentheticals are like the asides when
I extend a particular commentary sideways in a lighter tone of voice to signify a pause from my
main thrust, the bold or the quotations are like the emphasis through a slower, heavier tone that I
use when I want a particular wording or concept to standout (and hopefully be remembered). I
use these emphasizing tones when I introduce the assignment in class, hoping that when students
reread the prompt, after setting it aside for week, they will hear my intonations in their head and
be reminded of the classroom contexts for the assignment. The phrase words on the page, like
the phrases showing the steps of your thinking and using evidence to support your claims
that appear in the last paragraph, are concepts that I repeatedly emphasize throughout the
semester, as a way to put an identifiable handle on the particular skills of literary analysis that I
hope my students will learn in my course.
The Objectives that appear in the next section are taken directly from the syllabus. By using
the exact wording and calling the students attention to it, I hope that they will understand the
assignment not as an isolated obstacle but as part of the greater learning process of the course.
Tying the assignment directly to course objectives is also helpful later in the course when I can
recall for students how the different assignments and activities all contribute to the overall
learning goals, a move that I hope leads to a greater overall synthesis of course material. (This
symbiotic relationship between course goals and assignments is one of the most productive
takeaways that I gained from participating in UCATs course design institute.) As I introduce the
goals of the assignment, I emphasize that it is a skill paper, that they dont need to explain an
entire text but should instead focus on particular skill of engaging with the text and interpreting
concrete evidence.
The Requirements section is intended to clarify exactly what is expected for the particular skill
of close reading that comprises the objectives of the assignment. The idea of having a selection
and even retyping it I took from Phelan, but I added the requirement of three specific references

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as a prod to get students to move past the simple summary of a source that is all too common. I
realize that a specific reference might be just as vague as engage with the chosen selection,
which is why I provide an extended example on the back to explain exactly what I mean by
specific reference. Pointing to this section as my criteria for grading, students can use it as a
checklist to mark their progress, especially with basics about formatting and a header. The
mockup of a header and title allows students to visualize what their paper should look like. All
the details about objectives and requirements are designed to gives students something to hold on
to when they feel anxious about the assignment as a whole.
On the back I provide an example of an appropriate selection to illustrate what specific
references might look like in context. In the fall, I gave this assignment sheet out on the day that
we discussed Ida B. Wells (the source of the example selection), so that the discussion of the
selected passage was a natural part of the class. The annotations for the references are minimal
on the sheet but get connected to larger themes in the course of discussion. By integrating the
example and class discussion, I hope to not only model the skills of quoting and using evidence
that students are expected to practice in the assignment but also to illustrate how those skills are
part of interpretation more generally. This semester, I am giving them this assignment prompt the
day before they read Wells-Barnett. So instead of mentally reviewing what they had previously
read in light of the significant features I point to in the example, they will have those examples to
guide them in the reading process. I will be interested to see how this influences the effectiveness
of the example for students writing.

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English 2281
Spring 2014

Close Reading Paper (3-4 pages)

Due Tuesday, February 11th
For this assignment, you will select a limited section of one of the texts we have read for class.
(If you would like write about a different text in the anthology that we are not reading or havent
read yet, please come talk to me). The goal of focusing on just a small section is for you to
practice your analytical skills, to practice saying more about less, and to practice using evidence
to support your claims. The selection you choose might be as short as a couple lines of poetry
and should be no longer than a paragraph or two at most. You will focus on specific details that
appear in the selection (such as the imagery, symbolism, descriptions, or diction) to explain the
meaning of that selection and its relation to the work as a whole. Your paper should have an
organized structure, including a clear introduction and thesis statement, and should support your
argument with at least three specific references to the selection. Specific references mean
quoting or explicitly citing the words on the page, that is to say, you should start with basic
facts that no one could disagree with and move toward interpretation of those facts. Examples of
what I mean by specific references appear on the back of this sheet.
Objectives:
Identify and describe prominent features of a text
Analyze the significance of those features for the meaning of the larger text
Construct an argument and organized structure
Support claims with specific details as evidence

Requirements:
Retype the chosen selection and attach it at the end of your paper (not part of the 3-4 pages)
Make references to at least three specific details that appear in the selection
Have a developed introduction with organizing thesis that makes your main idea clear
Have a title that alludes to your main idea
Have a logical organization and a clear topic sentence for each paragraph
Have a conclusion that summarizes the significance of your main points
Have polished prose with few or no grammatical and spelling answers
Have an identifying Header
Double space, have 1 margins, and use Times New Roman 12pt, or equivalent, font

(first page)
Brutus Buckeye
English 2281 (Wilder)
Close Reading Paper
February 11, 2014
Flipping the Truth in Ida B. Wellss Mob Rule in New Orleans
In 1892 Ida B. Wells published the pamphlet Mob Rule in New Orleans about

Wilder Teaching Artifact: Close Reading Paper / 4

(last page)
This paragraph is taken from Mob Brutality, the third section of Ida B. Wellss Mob
Rule in New Orleans:
During the entire time the mob held the city in its hands and went about holding up street cars and searching them,
taking from them colored men to assault, shoot and kill, chasing colored men upon the public square, through alleys
and into houses of anybody who would take them in, breaking into the homes of defenseless colored men and
women and beating aged and decrepit men and women to death, the police and the legally constituted authorities
showed plainly where their sympathies were, for in no case reported through the daily papers does there appear the
arrest, trial and conviction of one of the mob for any of the brutalities which occurred. The ringleaders of the mob
were at no time disguised. Men were chased, beaten and killed by white brutes, who boasted of their crimes, and the
murderers still walk the streets of New Orleans, well known and absolutely exempt from prosecution. Not only were
they exempt from prosecution by the police while the town was in the hands of the mob, but even now that law and
order is supposed to resume control, these men, well known, are not now, nor ever will be, called to account for the
unspeakable brutalities of that terrible week. On the other hand, the colored men who were beaten by the police and
dragged into the station for purposes of intimidation, were quickly called up before the courts and fined or sent to
jail upon the statement of the police. Instances of Louisiana justice as it is dispensed in New Orleans are here quoted
from the Times-Democrat of July 26:

*note: I have bolded and underlined text in the selection above to make it clear what a specific
reference might entail. You do not need to do this. You also dont have to explain each reference,
as I do below. But these are the sorts of explanations that should be part of your paper.
Specific References should start with words on the page. You should be able to literally put your
finger on them. But they might involve multiple words, and you should describe and organize
them with the vocabulary of literary analysis that we have discussed in class
Reference #1 (bold & underline above): Diction, repeated verbs. They are all in the gerund (-ing) form,
which implies ongoing action. They all imply criminal activity. The verb phrases are all part of a single
sentence that describes the actions of the (white) mob in an introductory clause; the main subject of the
sentence is the police and the legally constituted authorities. The syntax of the sentence links the mob
and the police with ongoing criminal activity.
Reference #2 (bold above): Imagery, man/brute. The black brute was a common racial stereotype that
was used to justify lynching and other violent suppression of African Americans. The black brute
stereotype was part of the dehumanization of African Americans that echoed the effects of slavery. The
common imagery is inverted here. The whites are brutes and the blacks are men.
Reference #3 (underline above): Structure, quoted newspapers, journalistic style. The selection above ends
right before a news item from the Times-Democrat that Wells quotes from at length. She quotes from
multiple white newspapers throughout her pamphlet. Her accounts of events in New Orleans repeatedly use
the same diction, descriptions, and tone that white newspapers use to describe African Americans when she
describes the police and the white mob.

These are the most basic details of what I mean by a specific reference. In your paper, you will
need to go further to answer the So What? question. Why do these details matter? How do they
relate to or reveal Wellss purpose? How do they relate to the experience of African Americans
in the time that this text was published? You will need to quote words directly from the text
(such as those marked in the paragraph selection above) and then connect them with descriptive
comments (such as those listed out for each of the three references below the paragraph selection
above) and then connect them to the interpretative questions (such as those that appear earlier in
this paragraph). Doing all of these together is what I mean by showing the steps of your
thinking or using evidence to support your claims.