English · Reading library
Texts to read
Stories, poems, essays, arguments and model texts for close reading — each with analysis questions and key terms.
The Pearl Diver's Last Season
A short story about the year the boats stopped going out.
The Lighthouse Keeper and the Map
An allegory about a man who trusted the chart more than the sea.
Should Schools Start Later? Two Views
A paired argument text for comparing claims, evidence and reasoning.
The Day the Internet Went Down
A first-person account of a school with no connection for eleven hours.
How to Read a News Story About a Study
A practical guide to the gap between what research found and what the headline says.
The Hundred-Year-Old Tree
A poem and a close-reading walkthrough of its imagery and structure.
A Letter to the City Council
A model of formal persuasive writing, annotated so you can borrow the moves.
The Runner Who Came Fourth
A short story about the distance between a result and a performance.
The History of the Word Algorithm
How a ninth-century mathematician's name became a piece of everyday English.
Active Voice and the Missing Actor
Why "mistakes were made" is grammatically perfect and rhetorically suspicious.
Giving a Talk Without Slides
A guide to speaking so that people remember what you said.
The Boy Who Mapped the Neighbourhood
A short story about noticing, told in the second person.
Reading a Graph Like a Sentence
Charts make arguments. Here is how to read the argument, and the small print.