Critical Reading - They don ’ t read do they? Sandra Sinfield - LDU – LearnHigher CETL and LDHEN March 2007

London Met – reading reading Why students are not reading What ’ s it for – why do we want our students to read? Range of practical activities to encourage reading – thinking - writing

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 Implicit HE curriculum: 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.

What ’ s it for? Reading – what do we want? What are we testing? The ability to find difficult sources? The discovery of obscure texts? Quantity read? Reading for meaning? Reading for critical engagement? Acknowledge time constraints: specify, photocopy … Make space for reading and reading related activities

Reading within the curriculum Brainstorm: 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

Model it! Discuss your reading – it is difficult for everyone! Set student pairs/groups a text to read in class Textmapping can help: Model reading yourself in class – breaking text into chunks – use of skim and scan & in depth:

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

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 ’

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?

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 One question that you would ask the author An object that represents something from the text – to discuss A one minute presentation & value the effort that is put in when it is.

Emergency tactic: When half of them have not read the set text: Get everyone to select one sentence from the text that they have found meaningful (a main point or an idea with which to argue) – they then write this 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.

Research Encourage your students to participate in the LearnHigher research project exploring reading: u= Contact Sandra Sinfield for more information.