Close Reading Experiences (CREs) are Zinc’s self-contained, interactive video lessons. They are easy to assign and have enough variety to keep your students engaged. Students can explore CREs on their own, and each lesson can be repeated. If you'd like your students to complete auto-leveled CREs on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, you can include them in a Lift Off assignment. These flexible lessons are designed to fit your schedule and classroom needs.
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Students are coached through the following skills by our friendly video guides:

Students put these skills to work in a series of video-guided games. Students read and interact with engaging short excerpts of one to two paragraphs. CREs focus on commonly taught fiction and compelling nonfiction texts like Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and Malala Yousafzai's "Speech to the U.N. General Assembly."

Through repeated practice identifying and using close reading skills with diverse texts, Zinc seeks to empower students to read with confidence and clarity. Our CREs are the bridge to successfully tackling full-length articles and novels.

Our video guides will ask students to make predictions, answer thoughtful multiple choice and open-ended questions, and interact directly with the text. This gamification is designed to keep students engaged as they learn valuable skills.

Want to try a Close Reading Experience yourself? Once you're signed into your Zinc account and gone to the Close Reading Experience page, you can try any CRE that you like! Simply click on the option to "Play Lesson as a Student" or "Preview Game" under the activities. This is the easiest way to see how CREs will help your students succeed.

You can quickly assign a Close Reading Experience to an entire class or to individual students. If you would like to assign ongoing, weekly CREs, you may do so in Lift Off.

To reach the Close Reading Experiences page, click "Assign Activities" in the top menu of the Zinc homepage and then click "Close Reading Experiences."

The Close Reading Experiences page lists all of these lessons in one place. You may use the search box to find a specific CRE, or you can click on the dropdown menus to sort for the right selection of activities. You can sort by Zinc Level, reading time, or reading skill. Each CRE will reinforce a variety of valuable reading skills.

The first CREs on the page are "Introduction to Zinc-ing" and "Introduction to Tracking." We highly encourage students and teachers start with these activities before exploring the rest of our texts. They only take about 5 minutes to complete. The bite-sized mini-exercises help you and your students get the most out of your CREs!

You may try out any CRE from this page. Simply click "Play Lesson as a Student" or "Preview Game" to get the full student experience. You can also click "View" to see the full text that will be covered.

If you click the green "View" button, you'll see the full text of the passage. You can also see the approximate time it takes to complete each CRE!

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Once you've found the correct CRE, consider bookmarking it by clicking the yellow bookmark icon in the top right-hand corner of each CRE's box.
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When you click "Assign" on the list of Closer Reading Experiences or on a specific Close Reading Experience page, you'll be taken to a page where you can choose the class with students who should receive the assignment. Select the correct class from the dropdown menu.

Once you've selected a class, you will choose which students in the class should receive the assignment. If you want to assign the CRE to the whole class, click the green "Whole Class" button, which will select every student in the class. If you would like to assign to one or more specific students, click the checkbox to the left of their name. Once you've selected your students, click the green "Assign" button.

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Please note that if the student has already received the assignment or chosen to begin it themselves, then you will not be able to click the checkbox to the left of their name, and they will not be selected if you click the "Whole Class" button. Please ask them to complete the assignment on their dashboard. If the assignment is not on their dashboard, have them search for it on the Close Reading Experiences page. You will see their results with the rest of the class on the Assignment Progress Report.

Looking for powerful test prep activities? If you type "test prep" into the search bar on the CRE page, you'll see our current offering of leveled CREs specifically designed to coach students through Zinc's four-step approach to answering multiple choice reading questions.

We suggest starting with our introductory "4 Steps to Test Success" experiences:

Start Here: 4 Steps to Test Success - Middle School (level 2)

Start Here: 4 Steps to Test Success - High School (level 4)

For more practice, or to find our targeted Digital SAT prep experiences, use this direct link to our list of Test Prep CREs.

Each passage asks students a main idea question and walks them through Zinc's four-step method:

These Test Prep CREs are an excellent way to reinforce your class instruction. For pre-made Zinc Lesson Plans for Test Prep and more, check out this article on using Zinc for test prep.

To track student progress on their Close Reading Experiences or to view their results, you have several options. You may click on the assignment on your Zinc homepage or on the Assignments page. We strongly recommend using the Reports page, because it keeps all of the information in one place and makes it easy to find.

For more information on how to view reports covering Close Reading experiences, please check out these sections on Comprehensive Class Reports and individual Student Performance Reports.
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While Zinc should work on most browsers, we recommend using the app on the most recent versions of Chrome and Safari.

CREs are not supported on iOS or Android devices at present. As we optimize the app for a tablet experience, we will update our support list.
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When you assign a Close Reading Experience (CRE), it will appear on your students' Zinc Dashboard or homepage under "Recent Active Assignments." Students should click on the "Start Assignment" link on the right side of the screen.

If you're exploring on your own and it's your first time doing a Close Reading Experience, we recommend completing the introductory mini-CREs. These can be reached by clicking the green buttons that say ""Start Zinc-ing Lesson" or "Start Tracking Lesson" on the Close Reading Experience page.
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Yes! Students may check out any Close Reading Experiences by clicking on "Explore Activities" in the top Zinc menu and then clicking on "Close Reading Experiences." We still recommend that students start with "Introduction to Zinc-ing" and "Introduction to Tracking," which they'll see at the top of their own CRE page.

Students may complete all the Close Reading Experiences as often as they like. This makes CREs an excellent resource if a student finishes other assignments early or if you need to fill a small amount of class time with quality, ready-made content. Just ask your students to log into Zinc, click on "Explore Activities" and then "Close Reading Experiences," and they can explore Close Reading Experience on their own terms.
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Yes! You may assign any CRE as many times as you like, and students may even complete them on their own. Please note, past assignments of a specific CRE must be completed or canceled before a new assignment of the same CRE can be made.
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We understand there may be a need to disable the videos in Close Reading Experience. To temporarily turn off the videos in a CRE, a student needs to click on the small camera icon above the video.

You should now be more than ready to share Close Reading Experiences with your students! Once you're signed into Zinc, head on over the Close Reading Experience page and start assigning these helpful activities. Remember, you can try out any CRE by just clicking "Preview Game!"