Close, analytic reading stresses engaging with a text of sufficient complexity directly and examining meaning thoroughly and methodically, encouraging students to read and reread deliberately. Directing student attention on the text itself empowers students to understand the central ideas and key supporting details. It also enables students to reflect on the meanings of individual words and sentences; the order in which sentences unfold; and the development of ideas over the course of the text, which ultimately leads students to arrive at an understanding of the text as a whole.

 - Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) 2011, p. 7

Be very careful of what you read about close reading. It is not a teaching technique; when people try to make it into one, they tend to reveal all kinds of biases and funny beliefs. ... Close reading is an outcome. You want students to be able to read texts—without a lot of external information from teachers or publishers—getting what the text says, how it works, and what it means.

- Shanahan on Literacy (March 2013)

What is close reading?:

• A Critical Look at Close Reading Standard - September 2014 blog entry on Middle Web, clarifying the requirements of close reading while also toning down the "vendor hype"
  
• Close Reading and the Common Core - June 2012 blog entry from Shanahan Literacy Blog (Timothy Shanahan is Distinguished Professor of urban education at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he is Director of the Center for Literacy)
• Closing in on Close Reading - (Jan 2013) EdLeadership article defines close reading and provides strategies for approaching it in light of common core
• Toward a Composing Model of Reading (1985) Robert Tierney - presents reading as a process, similar to writing, which involves drafting and revising.
• Close reading in the English classroom - an example close reading of Heart of Darkness
  

Strategies for achieving close reading:

• Previewing Challenging Topics with Text Graffiti (4:48) - video featured at TeachingChannel.org that demonstrates middle school teacher's use of text graffiti
• Thinking Notes: A Strategy for Close Reading (1:43) - video featured at TeachingChannel.org that demonstrate teachers use of "thinking notes" as stategy to scaffold students' annotation of complex texts.
• Silent Tea Party: Pre-Reading Strategy for Challenging Texts (5:55) - video demonstrates high school teachers use of pre-selected quotes to motivate schema building and interest in upcoming reading 

Additional resources on close reading?:

• Close Reading of Informational Texts (grades 3-8) - by Sunday Cummins (see sample chapter on "What is close reading?")
• Close Reading of Poetry (8:00) - teacher demonstration of close reading Robert Frost poem
• Close Reading of Short Texts (7:56) - teacher demonstration of close reading in late elementary
• Close Reading in Government Class (13:46) - close reading with text dependent questions DBQ