Close Reading

Are you a close reader?

Close reading is the most important skill you need for any form of literary studies. It involves careful reading, not skimming or scanning a text, but making yourself sensitive to all the nuances and connotations of language as it is used by skilled writers.

To begin your close reading, ask yourself several specific questions about the passage. For example,

  • Do any words seem oddly used to you? Why?

  • Do any words have double meanings?

  • What is left out? What would you expect the author to talk about that the author avoided?

Directions: Try to solve the following riddles.

  1. A plane crashed and every single person on board this flight was killed, yet, there were survivors. Explain how.

  2. If an electric train travels ninety miles an hour in a westerly direction, and the wind is blowing from the north, in which direction will the smoke blow?

  3. Why can’t a man living in New York City be buried west of the Mississippi?

  4. An airplane, flying from the United States to Canada, crashed on the border between the two countries. Where would they bury the survivors—in Canada or in the United States?

  5. Three men standing outside tried to fit under an umbrella with room for only one person. Yet, none of them managed to get wet. How did this happen?

  6. Who isn’t your sister and isn’t your bother, but is still a child of your mother and father?

  7. If a rooster laid an egg on top of a pointed-roof henhouse, which side would the egg roll off?

  8. A bus driver was heading down a street in Colorado. He went right past a stop sign without stopping, he turned left where there was a “no left turn” sign, and he went the wrong way on a one-way street. Then he went on the left side of the road past a cop car. Still--he didn't break any traffic laws. Why not?

  9. A hungry donkey was tied to a rope eight feet long. About thirty feet away there was a basket of fresh carrots. The donkey wanted to eat those carrots. How did he reach them?

  10. I unwrapped a lump of sugar and put it in my coffee cup. The sugar didn't get wet. Why not?

  11. A police saw a truck driver going the wrong down a one--way street but paid no attention to him. Why not?