Close Reading - Deciphering the Details

When you do a close reading, you are looking deeply into the meaning of a small section of your text.

Directions: On a loose-leaf sheet of paper, write a comment for each numbered sentence(s).

Teacher Model:

1. “You see, Might is not Right. 2. But, there is a lot of Might knocking about in this world, and something has to be done about it. 3. It is as if people were half horrible and half nice. 4. Perhaps they are even more than half horrible, and when they are left to themselves, they run wild. 5. You get the average baron that we wee nowadays, people like Sir Bruce Sans Pitie, who simply go clod-hopping round the country, and doing exactly what they please, for sport. 6. It is our Norman idea about the upper classes having a monopoly of power, without reference to justice. 7. The the horrible side gets uppermost, and there is thieving, and rape, and plunder, and torture. 8. People become beasts.” (p. 247)

As a Class:

1. “Now, what I have thought,” said Arthur, “is this. Why can't you harness Might so that it works for Right? 2. I know it sounds nonsense, but, I mean, you can't just say that there is no such thing. The Might is there, in the bad half of people, and you can't neglect it. 3. You can't cut it out, but you might be able to direct it if you see what I mean, so that it will be useful instead of bad.” (p. 248)

Independent Practice:

1. “My idea is that if we can win this battle in front of us, and get a firm hold of the country, then I will institute a sort of order of chivalry. 2. I will not punish the bad knights or hang Lot, but I will try to get them into our Order. 3. We shall have to make it a great honor, you see, and make it fashionable and all that. Everybody must want to be in. 4. And then I shall make the oath of the Order that Might is only to be used for Right. Do you follow? 5. The knights in my order will ride all over the world, still dressed in steel and whacking away with their swords—that will give an outlet for wanting to whack, you understand, an outlet for what Merlyn calls the foxhunting spirit—but they will be bound to strike only on behalf of what is good, to defend virgins against Sir Bruce and to restore what has been done wrong in the past and to help the oppressed and so forth. Do you see the idea? 6. It will be by using the Might instead of fighting against it, and turning a bad thing into a good.” (p. 248)