I substituted for Abby today. We began chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby. First we discussed a vocabulary list in preparation for the chapter. She knew some of the words, and had heard of most of the others but couldn't define or explain them. After talking these through and writing them on the board, we began to read. Abby read out loud, while I stopped her to pose questions about author's purpose (why all those names for three pages), and to have her notice a sequence of shocking details thrown in here and there. What was the purpose of that? We also stopped to note the excellent writing of a descriptive paragraph about Gatsby's car and word choice such as "labyrinth" tossed in for effect! We ended with a question about Gatsby's comment that he was from the "Midwest" -- San Francisco. What? (: So intellectual curiosity was stimulated through this close reading.