I’ve been tasked (along with another professor at my university) with teaching a course for incoming freshmen who didn’t pass the reading portion of the test we use to place students here upon entrance. It’s a course intended to help them become ready to read at a college level.
Neither I nor the other guy I’m teaching with has ever taught a course quite like this, and we’re, well, a little lost.
We have this idea that we’d like to lead the students through two books during the course. (The course is a ninety hour one–it’s really two courses combined into one. So this is a very light reading load, but we figure that’s appropriate.) The books we’re tentatively looking at are Nickel and Dimed by Ehrenreich and Justice by Sandel. We’re thinking the course will be structured around reading and writing about these two books.
Now this is basically how I teach my intro course anyway. But that’s a course in Philosophy, which assumes already that the students know how to read, understand and write about a book with some difficult material in it. In this course, that’s what I’m teaching. And, to be frank, right now I’m not confident I know how.
I’m hoping someone here has some experience with this and can give advice.
What I suspect would be a good idea specifically for a course like this would be to have their writing assignments be very structured, as in, almost more of a “worksheet” than a carte blanche “write on topic X” or “answer this prompt” type of assignment. (The focus of the course is on reading, not writing. We’re preparing them to read works, we’re not preparing them to write papers. That’s a different course. Nevertheless, of course, being able to write about what you’re reading is the best way to show that you do understand what you’re reading. Hence the idea of writing assignments that are very structured, and not exactly like “papers” per se.)
But what exactly needs to be elicited on such a “worksheet” is something I’m not clear about at all. I’m hoping some people either have already used such an approach and can let me see it, or else have ideas about other approaches they can share.
It’d be great if I could come up with a single worksheet that can apply to basically any passage from the book, perhaps with minor adjustment, rather than having for each week specific questions that apply only to particular parts of the books. But if that’s impossible, then it’s impossible.
Meanwhile there’s the other question of what exactly to do in class! In my intro course we basically discuss the readings and I make sure to say all kinds of things that will be helpful as they write their paper for that week. But this doesn’t seem sufficient for this course–I’d like it to be something more tailored to helping them practice reading skills with quick feedback in class. But I’ve never taught a course like that, and I don’t know how right now. Maybe if I’d had a semester to come up with this, but I don’t. This is happening in a month.
In one sentence, what is the main point the reading is asserting?
Did the reading contain any supporting facts for this assertion? What were they? Choose one and explain how the fact supported the assertion.
Did the reading contain any countering facts for this assertion? What were they? Choose one and explain how this fact contradicts the assertion. Did the author then explain how the assertion stands up to that contradictory fact?
Do you agree with the assertion? Why or why not?
Was there anything in this reading that you felt was not needed or should have been left out? What was it and why?
Was there anything missing from this reading that you feel should have been included? What was it and why?
I’d suggest some selected readings from a collection of modern short stories. We use both of these books at my university.
Short stories can build comprehension and understanding. The advantage is you can quickly determine how well the student is progressing with the reading. You don’t have to wait several weeks to gauge their progress.
McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales
The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 2008: 21st Annual Collection (Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror)
What is the actual reading level of the students, beyond “not college level?” Will they all be roughly similar or pretty varied? I agree with the suggestion of short stories. If you have readers below level, they probably also have low confidence for reading. Short stories are less intimidating and more digestible than a full-on book. Another suggestion is Points of View which is collection of stories told in… various points of view. First person, third person, epistolary, journal-entry, objective narration, etc. We used it high school, some of the stories may be VERY familiar (“The Lottery”… again) but there’s no rule you have to use every story.
“Nickled and Dimed” is quite a short little book and IIRC told in discrete “segments” so I think its a good choice for nonfiction.
I agree with the idea of many short works. I would try to work in a few even shorter texts. Newspaper articles are a good way to start, as they’re very short and written at a very accessible level. That gives you a way to assess where they are and gives them some confidence to begin with.
If the focus is not writing, perhaps online discussion boards or something might be a good way to get them going. You can mandate participation, but since the writing there also comes in smaller chunks, you can prompt them to look for different things. It’s also low stakes, which is really beneficial for teaching skills that require a lot of practice over time.
In my experience, so many high school reading courses teach (1) how to understand the plot and (2) how to identify symbolism that students find all other types of criticism and analysis ridiculously difficult. Modelling different types of reading would be good.
I’d expect a reading course to focus more on content and understanding of what is read.
A literature course does more analysis, point of view, characters, plot construction, theme and so on. But for a reading course you’re just trying to get the content across and hopefully some understanding. Try to make reading interesting and fun. Something a reluctant reader will embrace and enjoy.
I love Literature courses but they can be so intimidating for people that rarely read. A good reading class can bring some of those people over to our side. Also, good reading skills prepares them for success in college.
Another thought: I’ve heard from some of my colleagues that they model how to read, physically: the importance of good light, a comfortable chair, the presence of pen and paper or something to take notes with, avoid reading in bed and other places you associate with sleep, avoid trying to multitask while reading (TV, etc.), divide the reading over the course of the week rather than trying to cram it into one session, etc.
The more important part of college reading is not learning to read fiction and understand plot and literary devices, it’s learning to read nonfiction critically. That was the angle I suggested the worksheet from.
I haven’t taught this specific subject, but I’ve taught in an accredited college and been assigned courses with almost no time to prepare (One memorable time I was assigned two courses I’d never taught before, a week before they started. I was qualified for both, being in the areas I’d got my degrees in, but still tough to get ready. At least there was already a text chosen)
One more suggestion is to allow students to use their interests to guide their choices in reading materials. You set the expectations in terms of what kinds of material they will read (e.g., essay, short story, magazine, etc.), but let them choose the content. For example, someone who is interested in sports might be allowed to choose Sports Illustrated or a story in the sports section of the local newspaper. Someone interested in fashion can choose material related to that. And so forth.
Many people are turned off when they don’t feel that they have much choice in what to read. If you can get your students to understand that it’s possible to like reading, and that they do have a certain amount of control over what they read, you’ll likely see a lot of resistance go away. You’re accomplishing the same goals, but you’re doing it in a way that appeals to their sense of empowerment and agency, and that’s a big deal.
I admit, I’m a little concerned in a much broader sense - is this really going to help these people? If they can’t pass a basic reading test, is one course going to bring them up to college level? Every day at the library I help people (sadly mostly in for-profit online colleges) who clearly do not have the reading skills they need, and frankly I don’t really see them improve. I hate to think of the school as setting them up for failure in later classes.
I agree that giving them a light reading load and relatively easy work is going to be counter productive in the end.
I’ve looked up some research, and it seems that college remedial reading courses generally have a positive effect on graduation rates when compared to low-performing students who don’t take the courses. There is A LOT of critical research on this subject, and it might be helpful to get a background on what works in remedial college reading.
I would use real assigned readings from different introductory courses from your institution as foundational materials. I’d imagine most of this would be journal articles, maybe a book or two, and maybe a few excerpts from textbooks. If your job is teach them to read college texts, you should be using college texts.
It might be helpful to organize these along a broad theme. For example, if Nickled and Dimed is a text, you could do something about economics in the US, and include readings on the subject from statistics textbooks, current events, political science, sociology, psychology and literature. A theme isn’t necessary, but it might help to keep them engaged and having that sort of interdisciplinary guided reading on a single subject might be some value-added in the course for the students. I’d rather learn a coherent curriculum than random readings on various subjects that don’t ever form a “big picture.” This also more closely resembles the way they will be expected to read in further classes.
I’d also include some element of choice, such as having students talk about a current event or article related to the class theme every other class. This will (hopefully) help them develop the habit of continually reading on their class subjects, and give them practice identifying quality things to read.
Rather than handing out identical worksheets every day, I would build up their reading skills progressively. A sequence for a 15 week course might look something like this:
What does college-level reading require, and what does the class need to get there?
Identifying the theme of a reading
Identifying key points and how they are supported
Identifying the structure of a reading
Interpreting charts and figures included in a text
Working with different types of college-level informational texts (literature reviews, journal articles, newspaper articles, etc.)
Fiction- recognizing the author’s voice
Fiction- working with literary devices (metaphor, rhyme and meter, etc.)
Fiction- different story telling structures (flashbacks, the unreliable narrator, etc.)
Judging how valuable and reliable a text is, also, skimming versus deep reading
Using the library, searching scholarly databases, and finding valuable reading online
Developing an argument based on one text
Comparing and contrasting two texts
Developing an argument based on many text, including different forms of readings (fiction, newspaper articles, journal articles, non-fiction books)
Pulling it all together- critiquing the readings in the course as a whole
Through this, I would work with one weekly assigned reading as the example through the lecture, but I’d also try some creative assignments. For the “identifying themes” section, I would give groups an untitled work, and have them work together to develop an appropriate title. When identifying structure, I’d have them mark up a printed text highlighting the topic sentences, various facts supporting arguments, the conclusion, any interjections by the author, etc.
Throughout the class, I’d encourage them to mark up their weekly assigned readings. Maybe the could start with a system you develop (I highlight structural points in blue, surprising facts or ideas in yellow, and relevent data in orange, and use post it’s to mark things I might want to use later in a paper) and help them morph that into their own marking/notetaking system. I’d also emphasize developing specific reading strategies- be it finding times and places that are good to read, figuring out when it’s appropriate to skim and when it’s appropriate to deep read, etc. Try to give them specific tools that may be helpful in their toolbox of reading skills.
Above all, keep a positive attitude. Don’t go in thinking these are dumb or lazy kids. They have chosen to take on college-level work, but they need a stronger foundation in some specific skills- and that is something that they are capable of cultivating. Like any classroom, use this class an an opportunity to build their intellectual curiosity, challenge them, and let them shine.
One thing I do is model how to take reading notes (so they know what to look for). If you send me your email in a pm I can send you a pdf I made showing the process.
I took a sociology class in college that had a lot of dense, jargon-heavy reading. The professor had learned that many of her students simply did not have the reading skills to tackle the material. So, rather than dumb it down, she spent the first few sessions teaching us how to to read it. I was annoyed at first, thinking it was a waste of time - “If they can’t read college-level texts, they shouldn’t be in college!” But I ultimately found a lot of her suggestions helpful, myself. Much of what she talked about was along the lines of Deegeea’s list. But before asking us those kinds of questions, she taught us some basic techniques for reading for comprehension:
**1. Prepare to read the passage. **Read the title, section or chapter titles, and any introduction or summary text. This will provide you with a basic idea of what you’re about to read. With that context, you can more easily interpret portions that are confusing to you, and you can consider what each portion means, not just in and of itself, but as part of the text as a whole.
2. As you read each paragraph, summarize it. Note a brief summary of the content or description of the purpose of the paragraph in the margin. For example, for the first three paragraphs of the introduction to Nickel and Dimed, you might write:
Author had idea about investigating poverty by living that way, her editor said she should do it.
She didn’t really want to, since she and her family had many experiences with low-wage jobs.
She also worried there was no point, since there was already lots of statistical information available.
Even these are a little wordy; you could simply say:
Idea: live poor, write about it.
DO NOT WANT! Fam has BTDT.
Why not just crunch #s?
It can be as brief as you want, as long as it makes sense to you and still captures the gist of the paragraph. There’s no need to include key facts or important quotes in your summary; they’re right there in the text. The goal is just to create a rough outline of the piece, to give you a sense of the bigger picture.
3. Underline words you don’t know, and look them up. Many of us are taught to skip over words we don’t know, to teach us to learn the meaning from context. The problem is that the context is often unclear or misleading, or there are too many unknown words to make sense of anything. So as you read each paragraph, underline the words you don’t know. Try to get the meaning from context first. Don’t write a summary yet, but start to form it in your mind. Then, look up the definition of the word, and note it in the margin (on the opposite side from where you’ll put your summary). Then, read the paragraph again, see if your summary changes at all, and write your summary. For instance, you read the first sentence of the introduction:
Perhaps you don’t understand “sumptuous”. Maybe you could figure out from context that, since the idea for this book is about “poverty”, and she’s using the word “comparatively”, she’s probably trying to point out a *difference *or *contrast * between the idea and the circumstances in which it came up. But that’s not at all clear. She could be trying to say that the idea was “bad” (since she was hesitant to do it at first) and so the circumstances were “good”, or that the idea made her “nervous” and the circumstances made her “relaxed”. But if you know that “sumptuous” means “extremely costly, rich, luxurious, or magnificent”, it helps you understand that the contrast she is trying to draw is between the richness of what she considers ordinary life, and a life of poverty she can hardly imagine. None of this would really affect your understanding of the main point of the paragraph, but it enriches your understanding of the author’s point of view. It’s kind of like reading in color, rather than just black and white.
4. If you are highlighting for study, make complete sentences. This may not as applicable for the books you’re using, since they’re more about broad ideas rather than facts and figures. Paragraph summaries are somewhat less helpful with a historical or scientific text, so highlighting takes the place of that. The idea is that, when you review the text for study, you don’t want to have to read the whole thing again. Ideally, you can just read your paragraph summaries or highlighted passages for detail, and have it make sense. For instance, here’s the first few sentences of the Wikipedia entry on the War of 1812:
People will typically highlight just the facts and figures, meaning they have to read again to get the context (“‘18%’? What about ‘18%’?”), or they’ll go overboard and basically highlight the entire thing. The idea is to skip descriptors, definitions, and so on, and highlight phrases that read as a coherent summary:
Then, when you’re studying, you can just read:
It’s about half the text, with the essential information intact.
5. Once you understand the text, both in parts and as a whole, react. Many students think that their job is just to read, accept, and absorb the information, without injecting their personal ideas. But I’ve found it can actually be easier for people to retain and make use of information if they have an opinion about it, rather than if they just feel neutral. So consider: What do you think about what the author is trying to say? Do you agree with it? If so, does it mesh with your experience? If it’s a new idea to you, what did you find convincing? If you don’t agree with it, why not? Whichever way you feel, what might make you change your mind? If it’s a factual piece, does it agree with other facts you know, or contradict them? If it’s historical, consider the overall timeline: did this happen slowly or quickly? What else was going on at that time that might have been relevant? Why did things happen the way they did? If some factor was changed, how might things have gone differently? If it’s scientific, crunch the numbers: do they make sense? Is the conclusion they draw correct, as far as you can tell? Do they surprise you in any way?
Overall, I think my professor’s strategy boils down to: start with the broadest view of the text, then gradually zoom in to gather deeper levels of detail, and finally zoom back out to see how it fits into the rest of what you think and know. I think it’s a great approach, not only for reading in specific, but for learning and thinking about the world in general.
I’m interested in the question, but it’s not relevant to the task at hand if you see what I mean.
My university has an open admissions policy. You are admitted if you have a GED or a high school diploma. However, with certain results on the exam I mentioned (it’s not an entrance exam in the sense you’re thinking) you have to take some pre-college courses we offer–and pass them–before you can start on college level courses.
We’re still discussing reading load–btw it wouldn’t just be the two books I mentioned, actually, though I implied that in the OP. Those are the two books we’re thinking about having them read in addition to shorter material.
Can you give me some journal names or links to stuff that’s available online?
We were thinking about using this kind of material in class in guided exercises, so I’m glad to see that idea echoed here.
I’m going to put some thought into this.
This would have been my first thought as well–the reason I suggested doing roughly the same thing each week is simply that I don’t know, on the spot, how to break this topic up into 15 discrete pedagogical units. Again–it’s simply not my area, when it comes to teaching. So my (our–as it’s team taught) idea was to sort of uncover those units as we went… Probably not ideal, but it’s similar to how I figured out how to teach what I do teach* so there’s that…
With that said, the 15 week sequence you listed is definitely going to be helpful and we hopefully will develop a better class for having read things like it.
*What I mean by this is, when I first started teaching, I did not know what my students would understand easily and what they wouldn’t, what would require a lot of explanation and what a little, etc. So, not knowing this, and knowing I didn’t know it, and knowing I had to do something ;), my philosophy was simply to start with what seemed to me to be the beginning, and carefully and constantly elicit questions in order to figure out what needed explaining and how much. I learned a lot about what it is possible for a person not to know, and about how to explain it. And over the course of a couple of semesters developed a fairly effective curriculum as a result. (Though I am always trying to improve it, and continue to feel that the improvements to come will be vast). So, I didn’t have, at the beginning, a sequence of units set up in any but the most vague and reviseable terms, but instead, figured out what the units needed to be as I went. And that, basically, is where I’m at with this class. I don’t know what it is possible for people not to know when it comes to understanding and being able to reasonably accurately and thoughtfully discuss a book like Nickel and Dimed. So I figure I’ll start with something that seems basic to me–for example, summarizing a paragraph in one or two sentences, or knowing how to find particular information in a book–and build up or down from there.
With my critical thinking, logic and philosophy classes I have the benefit of having spent several years being forced to think extremely carefully about how I do what I do. When it comes to reading for college–I haven’t had that benefit. Perhaps if I’d been an English major. But having been a Philosophy major, what I had to think carefuly about wasn’t “how do I read” but “how do I reason”–so I am left not being sure how to explain to others “how does one read?”
One thing about the sequence: In my relatively short teaching career, I have had immense difficulty, with many of my students anyway, helping them to see all the apparently “separate” things we learn each week as actually being part of one coherent topic. So for example, when it comes to this class, if I teach “identifying the theme of a reading” one week, and “identifying the structure of a reading” on another week, I fear that the students will know how to do one or the other when I ask them explicitly to do one or the other, but they will not know how to use these tools, when not explicitly prompted to do so, as part of the larger project of simply… well… reading a book and discussing it. This is another thing which leads me towards a less sequenced and more holistic approach wherein these tools are brought up, not in a set order, but as they become important, organically, in the class as nice “tricks” or “tools” to use in pursuit of higher level activities like, summarizing and drawing implications from a section, or whatever. I bring this up because I am fairly certain all of the above is due to some deficit on my part, and I’m curious to here what other educators have to say about it.
Sounds good. There is a personal worry here, though. I do not know how to guide students through something like this without crushing their sense of self expression. I have typically tried to steer clear of assignments like this because, well, I have a (friendly and supportive but) matter of fact and possibly even brusque, or at least, pointedly straightforward way of telling students about the quality of their work… Don’t get me wrong. Students love me and are convinced (often correctly) that I love them back. This is in part, I think, because I convince them that I know how to judge their work without judging them in a more personal way. But if I have them come up with their own title, that seems much more personal. And they come up with something off the wall, I don’t know how to tell them it’s off the wall in a way that helps educate, because, well, I told them, didn’t I, that they can create their own title? And if that’s not what I meant, then what did I mean? What are the criteria? What makes for a quality answer here? Just “what Dr. Frylock does or doesn’t like?” No? Something about how related it is to the theme? Then why didn’t he just ask us “what’s the theme?” Isn’t he just setting us up for failure? Why is he making us disappoint him? He’s just like every venal evil teacher I had in grade school, isn’t he.
I know teachers successfully use assignments like this. But I don’t know how I can use them.
These are the concerns that lead me, usually, to stick as far as possible to objectively answerable exercises.
That was a lot of stuff to say, wasn’t it? But I am curious to hear what people think about this kind of thing.
This sounds excellent. I never mark in my own books, so it didn’t even occur to me.
I’ll send you my email address, but I’m actually not sure it’s a good idea for me to try to teach note taking because I myself don’t do it. It may be a bad idea to try to teach something one oneself has no experience with…
By “I don’t see them improve” do you mean that you track individuals? Or do you mean that you often see people who are at about the same level?
As for whether it will help, the question is above my pay grade, but as even sven said and as the people in charge here also mentioned, it seems that a course like this can help, at least that’s what the research seems to indicate.
I suspect that what’s most helpful is simply reading a whole lot, with an experienced reader who has thought alot about his own reading practices to help guide your reading practices until they become habits. This process probably can’t be completed in a single course, but I can’t see that a single course would necessarily fail to begin a successful instance of such a process.
I’ll send that later today. I don’t do it, either, but it’s not to teach them note-taking so much as to teach them what kind of things to look for when reading. As pointed out above, many of them look for easily memorized and testable facts and neglect the larger purpose of the reading.
Having been in a similar position in the past, I think this is really the best way to go about this. It’s great to prepare as much as you can, so that when you find out what needs explaining, you have the tools to do it, but definitely, let your students’ needs guide you.
One way to approach this is to not tell them what you think, but ask them what they think. So for example, you give them a how-to article about fly-fishing, and someone comes up with the title “Encumbrance-Related Flight Velocity Variances in Hirundo rustica”. Instead of saying, “That… makes no sense,” you could ask, “Why did you choose that title?” I thought it was funny. “Heh, me too. But how does it relate to the article?” Well, it doesn’t, but who cares? It’s just a title. “Interesting. Do you think the title of an article has a purpose? If so, what is it? Could it have more than one purpose? Does it depend? What do other students think?” And so on.
You can also define in advance what you think the criteria are, with as much input from the class as possible, and ask them to create their own title using those criteria. Then, if they come up with something kooky, you can refer back to the criteria and ask them to show how it fits.
Also, good reading skills prepares them for success in college.
So my (our–as it’s team taught) idea was to sort of uncover those units as we went… Probably not ideal, but it’s similar to how I figured out how to teach what I do teach* so there’s that…