Active Reading summarized from John Bean, Engaging Ideas, Chap. 8
Roots of poor student reading skills
- Assuming that reading should be speed reading, not laborious and slow Failing to adjust reading strategies for different texts and circumstances
- Failing to perceive an argument’s structure as they read Difficulty in assimilating or accepting the unfamiliar
- Failing to see the rhetorical/cultural context in which a text exists Difficulty in seeing themselves engaged in the text’s broader conversation
- Failing to know the allusions and cultural references of a text Possessing an inadequate vocabulary, and resistance to looking up words
- Difficulty in understanding complex and unfamiliar syntax Failing to see how discourse varies from discipline to discipline
Strategies for helping students become better readers
- Show students how your own reading process works, especially how you vary reading strategies
- Show students your own notes, marginalia, quotations, etc.
- Encourage students to use the dictionary. Try to get them to tick off one unknown word per page and define it; offer extra credit, in-class writing based on vocabulary
- Teach students two levels of glossing: SUMMARY (what it says) and RHETORIC (what it does) for each paragraph. Then add a third level: REACTION (what do you think?)
- Have students present reports, notes for texts not covered in class
- Try non-graded pretests, collaborative brainstorming or writing before a text is assigned
- Present two readings from sharply contrasting perspectives to show the impact of authorial frame of reference. Have students do brief research/presentations on authors to help understand their perspectives
- Unlock cultural codes in a text through discussion and student-generated reading guides
- Have students realize all texts are persuasive. Have students write down their beliefs on a topic before and after reading a text.
- Teach students to role-play, first as a believer in a text, second as a skeptic
Assignments to help student improve their reading skills
- Have students turn in photocopies of texts with their marginal notes
- Have students keep column notes, where you provide subject headings for each column
- Have students keep two-column journals, one column for summary, one for response
- Have students keep an open-ended record of engagement with a text
- Devise reading questions and make students respond in writing to them
- Ask students to write dialogues with the author, or several authors assigned
- Have students write abstracts of articles
- Have students map, or outline, the writer’s argument
- Have students devise multiple-choice or essay test questions on readings
- Have students write translations, or reading guides, for classmates, other classes, succeeding students, etc.