This topic brief is one in a series on personalized learning prepared for Conversations with Innovators, 2018. Intentionally and thoughtfully designed close reading lessons that select the just right, short, manageable, complex text worth revisiting and rereading at least three times for literal, structural, and inferred meaning followed by a facilitated close and careful discussion about the text's intrinsic layered meanings provides the platform for a community of learners to mutually discover and cement literal, structural, and implied meanings. Fashioning close reading opportunities into standards-driven lessons allow the teacher to teach in a meaningful, purposeful, and efficacious manner while simultaneously embedding personalized learning techniques into the close reading lesson. Doing so serves to enhance the personal competencies believed to be a reagent for both in-school and out-of-school success. This brief discusses supporting research in the arena of close reading and writing, how close reading applies to personalized learning, and why teachers should include close reading as a personalized learning strategy. A practical application of close reading is included.