2. Critical Reading - They don ’ t read do they? Presentation - Sandra Sinfield, London Metropolitan University Handout - Kate Smith, Brunel Both of LearnHigher CETL and LDHEN March 2007

3. Situation Critical This presentation has been compiled following an extended conversation on student reading habits across the LDHEN. Agenda: Why students are not reading What ’ s it for – why do we want our students to read? How to support reading - Range of practical activities to encourage reading – thinking - writing

4. Why some don ’ t read Lack cultural capital Lack of academic capital Studying seen as part time Students read less than they did Sheer amount of information … Shift to modularity – more reading expected of less inducted students with less time Subjects seen as vocational rather than academic HE policy & practice?

5. What ’ s it for? What are we testing? The ability to find difficult sources? The discovery of obscure texts? Quantity read? Reading for meaning? Reading for critical engagement?

6. Implicit HE Need to make explicit what we mean by taken for granted practices Need to embed opportunities for students to develop academic practices in the curriculum Acknowledge time constraints: specify how much you want them to read,, photocopy if possible Make space for reading and reading related activities http://www.publishinghub.net/

7. Reading within the curriculum Brainstorm with students: Why do we read? How do we know what to read? How can we read effectively? How much should we read? Discuss with group – acknowledge reading is difficult – but gets easier with practice

8. Model it! Discuss your reading – it is difficult for everyone! Set student pairs/groups a text to read in class Textmapping can help: http://www.textmapping.org/using.html http://www.textmapping.org/using.html Model reading yourself in class – breaking text into chunks – use of skim and scan & in depth – the paragraph questions:

9. Active, interactive & critical reading strategy For EACH significant section: What is this paragraph about? Where is the writer coming from? Who would agree/disagree with this position? What is the argument? Who would dis/agree? What is the evidence? Is it valid? How do you know? Annotations – marginalia - short notes. TIP : index cards of all sources – re-cycle reading

10. Link to writing: We feel that students ‘ cannot write ’ because they do not read! Hence increase in plagiarism? Possibly link reading strategy to writing strategy ‘ The paragraph as dialogue ’

11. Writing questions: What is this paragraph about? What exactly is that? What is your argument? (Tell me more) What is the evidence (for & against)? What does it mean? How does this relate back to the question as a whole?

12. Make reading necessary Read this & come to seminar with: Three words that describe how it made you feel A bare bones summary (25 words) A visual summary An object that represents something from the text One question that you would ask the author A one minute presentation & value the effort that is put in when it is

13. Emergency tactic: When half of them have not read the set text: Everyone to select one meaningful sentence from the text (a main point or an idea with which to argue) Write selection on a post-it or on the whiteboard and say why they chose it. The ones who did read make an informed choice – others have to busk it … An interesting discussion ensues – and may be they all read next time.

14. Research If you want to share your reading strategies and resources with the wider HE community OR If you want to collaborate with reading research within Learn Higher: Contact Sandra Sinfield: s.sinfield@londonmet.ac.uk ORs.sinfield@londonmet.ac.uk Visit www.learnhigher.ac.ukwww.learnhigher.ac.uk