College essays, grammar, and English already sit in Jai's regular teaching rotation, so when he picks up a literary text, he's reading with a writer's eye — tracking how an author's sentence rhythms, word choices, and structural decisions create effects that go beyond the story itself. His Stanford ...

Reading a novel for pleasure and analyzing it for a literature class require completely different muscles — close reading, identifying rhetorical strategies, and building an argument about theme or structure. Jessica's history degree from Penn trained her to treat texts as arguments worth interrogat...

Kate approaches literary analysis the way she'd approach a research problem: identify the question, gather textual evidence, and build an argument. Whether a student is unpacking symbolism in *The Great Gatsby* or tracing narrative structure in a contemporary novel, she teaches close-reading techniq...

Jeffrey approaches literature the way he approaches engineering problems — by breaking a text down into its moving parts and asking what each one does. Whether a student is unpacking symbolism in a novel or building an argument about a poem's structure, he teaches close reading as a skill with concr...

Reading a novel for class is one thing; analyzing how an author uses symbolism, narrative structure, or unreliable narration to build meaning is another skill entirely. Erika's public policy background trained her to dissect complex texts for argument and evidence, and she applies that same close-re...

Analyzing literature means learning to ask better questions of a text — why does the narrator shift tense here, what does that recurring image actually do, how does dialogue reveal power dynamics between characters. Rhea's coursework at UChicago, where close reading is central to the curriculum, sha...

A voracious reader with a liberal arts education from the University of Chicago, Sharon treats literature as an exercise in close reading — pulling apart an author's syntax, imagery, and structure to uncover how a text actually produces meaning. She's equally comfortable unpacking a Shakespeare sonn...

Reading closely means more than summarizing plot — it means noticing how an author's choices in structure, diction, and point of view shape meaning. Samantha's background in global health research trained her to read dense, argument-driven texts analytically, a skill she now applies to poetry, novel...

An avid reader across genres, Sami approaches literature by teaching students to ask better questions of a text — not just "what happened" but "why did the author structure it this way?" He unpacks themes, symbolism, and narrative technique by connecting them to the historical and cultural context s...

A published author with deep roots in comparative literature, MaryAnn digs into texts the way writers read — tracking how metaphor, narrative structure, and point of view create meaning on the page. She's particularly sharp at teaching students to build literary arguments that go beyond plot summary...