A Note on Class Paraphrases

Students consistently try to paraphrase instead of close reading, I think, because paraphrase is rewarded in high school. I'm not distressed or surprised, but you need to adapt to a new way of thinking with close reading. Old strategies need to change in college.

Of course, before you can do a close reading you need to understand your passage literally and be able to paraphrase it easily and accurately. 

A lot of students literally misread passages they paraphrased. In your essays literal misreadings will cost you dearly. The most common misreadings were: 1)  thinking "ingrate" refers to Satan. You need to look to the previous sentence to determine grammatically it can only refer to "Man" 2) thinking God intends to change Man's nature - "else" turns that around; that's just a question of paying attention to what you read.