What is close reading?

Close reading is when you really engage with a text and all of its connotations. It means that you need to look at what techniques, voice or person the author may be using but importantly it is not just spotting these. You must look at why the author has chosen to use these techniques. This should be at both the level of the passage you are analysing and at the level of the text as a whole. This is what the study of English is all about!