"On the Rainy River" is one of the best chapters in The Things They Carried for teaching close reading. The narrator receives his draft notice, drives north to a fishing lodge near the Canadian border, and spends six days with an old man named Elroy Berdahl before a decision he cannot quite explain. The story is compact, layered, and full of small details that reward attention.

Close reading essays are different from general literary analysis. They ask students to stay with the language, examining word choice, sentence rhythm, and image. Many students find that harder than discussing themes.

The result is that essays on this chapter often drift toward big ideas like courage and shame without ever looking hard at a sentence. Your rubric should catch that drift and steer students back to the words on the page.

This post explains what a strong close reading looks like here, how to score it, and how to give comments that push students to slow down.

Define what close reading means for the assignment

Students do not automatically know that close reading means examining language in detail. Say it directly, and give an example of a sentence-level observation. A paragraph that unpacks a single phrase from the river scene teaches more than a page of general claims.

• Selects short, meaningful passages instead of summarizing scenes
• Comments on specific words, images, or sentence patterns
• Explains how those choices shape the narrator's feelings or the reader's response
• Connects the close observations to a larger point about the story
• Avoids drifting into biography or the author's real life

Comment on the smallest unit of analysis

When you find a claim that floats above the text, point to a nearby sentence and ask what a particular word is doing. That one question often produces a stronger revision than a paragraph of advice. It also shows students what close reading looks like in practice.

Keep a short list of these targeted questions. They travel well from paper to paper, and students start asking them of their own drafts.

Handle the decision at the end with care

The chapter's ending invites strong opinions about whether the narrator was brave or cowardly. Students often write as if the text answers that question for them. Reward essays that stay with the ambiguity and examine how the language creates it.

Avoid penalizing papers for taking either side. The evidence in the text supports multiple readings, and the quality of the analysis is what counts.

Make grading close reading less time-consuming

Close reading essays take time because they require you to check the student's reading against the text. A rubric with a specific row for language-level analysis helps you focus. Using a tool like GraideMind to generate a first pass on each paper can also save time, since the feedback is tied to your rubric rows and can be adjusted before it reaches students.

The extra minutes you gain are best spent on the papers that almost get there, where a single thoughtful comment can change how a student reads for the rest of the year.