Strategies to Increase Engagement After Reading

Engaged Reading for Learning in Higher Education Series: Topic Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Engaged Reading for Learning in Higher Education Series
Part 4:
Strategies to Increase Engagement After Reading

Overview

Once students have read through the entire text, instructors can continue to support students’ engagement with the text during the After Reading stage.  Prompts and assignments given in the After Reading stage help students to explore readings more deeply and apply information from readings to new concepts. This process creates the types of learning opportunities that help students meet the learning outcomes for our courses:  "After students work deliberately through a text, they need to extend their understanding of the text, connect to other ideas beyond the text, and apply their new learning to multiple other situations" (Walqui & van Lier, 2010, p. 177). 

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Teaching Strategies

After Reading tasks help students to extend their understanding and "help students reflect and consolidate learning, even as the learning is being applied in new ways and to new situations" (Walqui & van Lier, 2010, p. 178).  

The following table lists several activities and assignments that invite students to extend their understandings of texts and apply the information they’ve learned to novel contexts. 

Note: Students do not necessarily complete all of the work done for these activities in class. Reading of the text itself and and accompanying tasks can be assigned as homework.  Students then interact around the readings and tasks when they come to class. 

Activity Activity Description 
Small Group Debates 
  • Students engage in small-group debates (two-person teams in groups of four) on a question related to the reading.   
  • Students are awarded points each time they integrate a quote or paraphrase from the reading to support their argument.   
  • Students “claim” their own points by marking them down as they speak, though members of the opposite team can contest a point by stopping play to consult the reading.  (This activity works best in classes with fewer than 30 students, where the instructor can observe). 
Literature Circles 
  • Literature Circles allow for structured discussion of readings by assigning roles to students, such as analyst and critic. 
  • Individual students complete a task that is defined by their role, and then come together to discuss the reading through the the lens of their assigned role. 
  • Literature Circles bridge the While Reading and After Reading stages and provide a coherent framework for supporting students’ reading of complex disciplinary texts. (See “Additional References” for more detailed information.) 
Mini Poster Presentations 
  • Assigned to groups of three, students read different articles on the same topic and then create mini poster presentations summarizing their readings.   
  • Once in their groups, each student orally summarizes the reading they were responsible for and explains their reactions to the reading.   
  • Afterwards, students compare and contrast the readings' treatment of the topic in a group discussion. 
Double Entry Journal: Application to current event 
  • Students engage in small-group discussions about a current event that exemplifies the topics they've been reading about and, in groups, complete a handout (Double Entry Journal) that prompts them to articulate how the concepts presented in the reading play out in the current event or situation. 
  • This can also serve as a pre-writing activity for the Analytical Writing - Application to current event, below. (See “Additional References” for more detailed information.) 
Analytical Writing: Application to current event 
  • Similar to the Double Entry Journal, students look for current events or authentic situations that exemplify the topics they've been reading about and explain in a short analytical writing assignment how the concepts presented in a reading are at work in the current event. 
  • Connections between the reading and the event/situation are articulated in an explicit way, and students are instructed to integrate information from the course readings using discipline-specific citation conventions. 
  • The Double Entry Journal (above) can serve as a pre-writing assignment for this analytical writing activity.  
Professional Blog Post 
  • Students produce an authentic text (ideally, one that is used in the professional field of their discipline) integrating information from the readings and using appropriate citation. 

  • An example of this type of text is a blog post like the one Entomology Today, a project of the Entomological Society of America (ESA), is soliciting here, partially reproduced below: 

    Writing for Entomology Today can be a great opportunity to show off your entomology expertise, hone your general-audience 

    communication skills, and earn a little public recognition. Blog post topics can range from covering new research to answering a common question about an insect to interviewing an entomologist about their career... 

  • This gives students an authentic writing task that requires them to integrate what they have read into a written text in a way that is lower-stakes than a research paper, for example. 
  • Examples of other types of texts they could be asked to write are letters to the editor of a journal, a short white paper, an executive summary, a comparative summary of two research articles, or a critical review. 
  • In some cases, it may be possible for students to submit their work to an online publication or to the university newspaper. 
Scenario-based Disciplinary Writing 
  • Students write an advice letter, recommendations, or a report, acting as if they were professionals in the discipline, and integrate information from the reading to support the advice they are giving.   
  • This works well when the instructor sets up a fictional scenario that is authentic to the discipline and has students respond as if they were an expert in the discipline, integrating information from the readings in their letters using appropriate citations. (See “Additional References” for more detailed information.) 
Student-produced e-book 
  • Students create an e-book on a topic related to the readings, incorporating text, photos and video, if desired, and integrate information from the readings explicitly.   
  • E-books can be created by individual students, or they can be created collaboratively, with each student in a small group creating a different page or section. (See “Additional References” for more detailed information and examples of student e-books.) 
Graphic Organizers: Applying the framework  
  • Students complete a writing assignment based on concepts or frameworks presented in readings. This works particularly well when the framework can be represented as a graphic organizer. 
  • The graphic organizer provides a format that assists students in understanding the reading (and can be completed by students during the While Reading stage). 
  • The graphic organizer, once completed, also supports students in writing their own text after reading, using the framework presented in the reading.  (See “Graphic Organizer for a General Education Class – Applying the Framework” below.) 

  

Assignment Example:  Graphic Organizer for a General Education class – Applying the Framework

A graphic organizer is one example of an assignment that can be used after students have read a text.  This type of assignment provides a structure for students to organize key concepts from the text or their own thoughts and responses to the reading.  Students are provided with (or complete on their own) a graphic organizer which may serve as a tangible representation of the way in which instructors would organize their own thoughts, thus modeling the less tangible processes of cognition for students.   

  • Background
    The following Graphic Organizer illustrates how one instructor engaged her undergraduate students in an Introduction to Sociology course.  This course meets a General Education requirement, so it is often enrolled with students from all disciplines with no prior coursework in sociology.   
  • Purpose
    Students read a disciplinary-specific text or a peer-reviewed article in order to understand the process of using the Sociological Imagination, a process for sociological analysis. They then apply it to their own lives by writing a personal biography.   
  • Design
    The design of the graphic organizer highlights this process for students with questions they can consider in order to activate this way of thinking. The same diagram, left blank, provides a structure for students’ thought processes as they work to apply their own thinking through this lens. 

  •  Function

    Left side: This side of the  diagram works as a summary of both the content and processes depicted in the reading. This can be provided by the instructor; however, students can also complete this during the While Reading stage. 

    Right side: This side of the diagram, which mirrors the left, provides a scaffold and structure for students to extend the reading and apply it to their own biographies.


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 Graphic Organizer: Using the Sociological Imagination to Write a Personal Biography 

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Black-and-white process diagram: detailed left flowchart and simplified right flowchart with arrows
  • Additional Resources
  •  
    • College Literature Circles
      Resource on using College Literature Circles for disciplinary reading.
    • Double Entry Journal Template
      Word template for a Double Entry Journal that can be used to apply information from readings to a current event.
    • Scenario-Based Learning
      Resource article on Scenario-Based Learning (SBL).
    • Student-Made E-Books
      Resource on student-created e-books, including a “how-to” video.
  • Citation
  • Turner, P., & Rossi, M. (2019). Engaged reading for learning series: Just-in-Time Teaching Resources. https://cee.ucdavis.edu/JITT
  • References
  • Bean, J. C. (2011). Engaging ideas: The professor’s guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.

    Walqui, A., & van Lier, L. (2010). Scaffolding the academic success of English language learners: A pedagogy of promise. WestEd.