Literacy Fundamentals — Close Reading Seminar

Choosing the shared text

Each session runs on one text the whole class works together. You nominate it and name it on the board. It should be at or slightly above year level, demanding enough to argue about, and in front of every reader — a School Journal article the class set carries, a chapter of the class novel, or a piece of quality Aotearoa non-fiction or journalism. For the pūrākau session, the provenance rules inside Lesson 6 govern the choice: named source or an alternative text, never an unsourced retelling.

The standing rules

• Every claim begins by quoting the text. "It's obvious" is out of order.
• First responses are silent and written, so every learner commits thinking before discussion starts.
• The class settles claims on the evidence — and is allowed to rule a question open when the text genuinely underdetermines it.
• Dissent with a quote is seminar work and goes in the record; dissent without one is noise.

The collective record

The unit accumulates a visible class record, one artefact per lesson: prediction board, word wall, main-idea chart, inference record, structure map, bias audit chart, and synthesis map. Lessons 9 and 10 work directly from these records — the class synthesises its own documented reading, not its memories. Individual accountability sits alongside it: a one-minute journal entry and an exit slip every lesson, and a position paper at the capstone.

Ngā Whāinga Akoranga — Learning Intentions

• Ākonga will apply comprehension strategies — predicting, word-solving, main ideas, inferencing, structure, critical reading, synthesis — to demanding shared texts.
• Ākonga will argue interpretive claims from quoted evidence and accept, revise or withdraw them when the words demand it.
• Ākonga will build and use a collective record of what the class settled, and write their own positions from it.

Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria

• I can propose a claim about the shared text and read aloud the words it rests on.
• I can challenge a claim with evidence rather than volume — and change my mind when the text beats me.
• I can record what the class settled, what evidence decided it, and what stayed open.
• I can write my own position from the collective record, in my own reasoning.

Differentiation & Inclusion

• Silent-first protocol: every learner commits a written response before discussion, so the seminar is never captured by its fastest talkers — and quieter ākonga can dissent in writing with the same standing.
• Access to the text: display the working passage large, offer a private read-aloud or text-to-speech first pass, and keep the shared text physically in front of every reader.
• Rotating roles: proposer, challenger, recorder — rotate them so the same learners are not permanently arguing or permanently scribing.
• ESOL / ELL: pre-teach the session's challenge vocabulary privately before the class meets it; home-language comparisons are evidence, not interruptions.
• Te reo Māori: kupu Māori are never guessing material — the text's own glossary or source is the authority, consulted rather than debated.

Assessment

• Formative, every lesson: the exit slip (one claim plus its evidence) and the one-minute journal entry — read them for who is quoting and who is still asserting.
• The collective record shows the class's trajectory: are rulings resting on better evidence in week three than week one?
• Summative: the capstone position paper — an individual argument, defended from the texts, using the class's documented record.