A 'close reading' pays close attention to the details of a text. Close reading is not all there is to biblical studies, but it is indispensable. This exercise will help train you in the close reading of biblical texts.
Choose a common passage from the following list for you to study:
Any one of the seven letters of Revelation 2-3
Rev 6:12-17
Rev 8:6-13
Rev 11:4-13
Rev 12:1-6
Rev 13:11-18
Rev 17:1-6
Rev 18:9-20
Rev 19:9-16
Rev 20:7-15
Rev 21:15-27Using Powell, study Bible notes, and other sources (such as Koester's commentary) you may have at your disposal, investigate your passage's Old Testament echoes, its first century political and social context, its apocalyptic and other literary devices, and so on. Collect observations and questions about the passage. All this serves as background.
Now write a close reading of the passage that you could defend to a wide audience of readers with varying theological convictions. By this I mean that your exposition of the passage would be plausible to both liberals and conservatives, both believers and nonbelievers, both Catholics and various schools of Protestants.
I suggest that you use a single-spaced prose-outline form, but that is not required. Keep the passage itself rather than your secondary sources at center-stage; don't write a 'research paper' full of those secondary voices.
Of course, cite any sources you draw on, whether directly or indirectly, or you're plagiarizing.