We'll go over this handout on close reading (but you don't need to blog anything about it).

What does a close reading do? Here is one example:

While “The Star-Spangled Banner” is known to most Americans as a song, Francis Scott Key’s poem emphasizes sight far more than sound in order to invoke patriotic feelings of hope. The poem does not ask the reader to listen, but rather to “say” what the reader can “see” (1). The first stanza contains two questions, stanza two contains one question mark and one hopeful exclamation mark; yet stanza three has only one question mark, suggesting that hope is at risk; but the uncertainty of the third stanza is erased by the final triumphant stanza contains no question marks and two exclamation marks. The same wavering passage from uncertainty to certainty is also reflected visually, through the flag’s survival from night through the dawn, and its transition from “fitfully blowing” (12) to its waving with “full glory reflected” (13).

That's an example that I banged out in about 15 minutes before class. I'm not entirely satisfied with it... I don't think it will be possible to make a strong connection between the sight/sound discussion and the pattern from uncertainty to certainty. If I were to keep working on this, I would likely have to choose one or the other idea.

One might also look at the last two lines of stanza one. Everyone belts out these lines as if it is a statement of triumph, but look at the punctuation:

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

At this point in the poem, the speaker does not know the answer to the question. (After class today, I heard a student say she would never think of the national anthem the same way again. That's a sign that we're doing something right in this class.)

Be careful of quoting passages simply to prove that you understand the poem. The content of the poem says the flag was clearly visible last night at sunset; the bombs and rockets that went off during the night have now stopped, and the speaker does not know the outcome of the battle. When dawn finally comes, the speaker can first make out a flag flapping in the weak breeze, but because the flag isn’t fully extended, the speaker doesn’t yet know whether it’s the American flag that was flying last night, or whether the British have taken down the flag and replaced it with their own.

But as a college English student, you are already expected to be able to understand the content (with help, of course, from footnotes, dictionaries, and published scholarship). The proper area of focus of a close reading would be details such as the author's expression --- specific word choice, rhyme scheme, figures of speech, places where the poet is being deliberately ambiguous.

Thus, a close reading is an argument about how the poem means, not a statement about what it means. (Elsewhere I have general handouts on thesis statements and writing an argument.)