Perhaps not entirely. Any method, no matter how silly, can be used as a change of pace. Let’s stipulate that variety is often a stimulus.
Here’s the chief, if ironic, benefit of this bad method. Make kids wallow for half-an-hour in something unpleasant (for example, how to prepare taxes) and many will beg for anything half-way interesting. Please, teacher, let us read a novel. Please!
Otherwise, Close Reading is almost a perfect fraud. At least, that’s my conclusion.
