How to do a close reading

Close reading is a useful strategy in which one dissects a passage in order to understand the full meaning of a passage. There are many ways that one can close read. One way to close read is to annotate the text. Annotating the text is the easiest way to understand a text. For example, if you find an ambiguous word, substitute it with another word and see if it changes the context of a sentence. Another way to do a close reading is to look for similarities in a sentence. Most often writers will repeat what they are saying in order to get a point across. The last and most useful way of understanding a close reading is to ask questions after the short reading. Ask questions like why and how to get a better understanding of the text. These are the same exact things i do when i read a difficult text such as a text by Emmerson. An example of this is by coming up with multiple meanings  of a confusing passage or confusing words. For example:

In Emerson’s piece of writing he said “The millions, that are us are rushing into life.” The word “rushing” has a big effect on the meaning of the sentence. One way that you can interpret the word rushing sometimes implies speeding quickly, sometimes violently to get to a certain destination. Emerson does a great job using the word “rushing” because it really personifies that kids are so anxious to reach a certain age. Many kids today are counting down the days till their grade school graduation, high school graduation, and college graduation. In addition to all the graduations, many kids are looking forward to getting their driver’s license and when they are legal to drink. In other words, when kids are fourteen they can’t wait to be sixteen and when they are sixteen they can’t wait to be twenty-one. If Emerson were to use a word like “Quickly” it would change the meaning of the sentence. If the sentence were to state “ The millions, that are around us are quickly going into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvest,” you would really lose the exaggeration on how bad kids want to grow up. The use of the word “rushing” in this short sentence helps the reader realize that kids want to become older.

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/plan/boost-your-skills/189995.html
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/documents/CloseReading.html