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 1:
Understanding Disciplinary Reading
Overview
Reading is a primary vehicle for imparting the content of our disciplines; however, instructors commonly note that students have difficulty understanding required course readings. If it is difficult for students to engage with complex disciplinary texts, what common challenges do students encounter as they read? How might instructors design learning to support students in reading discipline-specific texts? This series aims to address such questions and begins by discussing factors at play when students engage with texts that assume a disciplinary background students may not yet have. The series is organized around the three stages of reading: Before Reading, While Reading, and After Reading (Grabe & Stoller, 2001). Each stage is described briefly, and examples of challenges students face during the first two stages are paired with teaching suggestions to address those challenges. For the After Reading stage, learning activities that help to extend and deepen students’ understandings of texts are given. The discussion of each stage concludes with concrete examples of assignments that can be used in university classes during that particular stage of the reading process.
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Reading Disciplinary Texts
Recent understandings of reading, as discussed in the literature, view the process of reading as sociallysituated and contextual in ways that are not always transparent to students. Baker and colleagues (2018) note that reading, and in particular, the reading of disciplinary content, is “highly complex, contextdependent, and based on the reader’s engagement with background knowledge, schematic understandings and ideological perspectives” (2018, p. 149). David Bartholomae (1986), in his now-classic article, notes that students have to “invent the university, that is, a branch of it, like History or
Anthropology or Economics or English. [The student] has to learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar ways knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our community” (p. 4). Bartholomae focuses his discussion on disciplinary writing, but his observations are equally true for disciplinary reading. Given the complexity of disciplinary texts and the disciplinary knowledge, values, contexts and constructs embedded within them, it is not surprising that students encounter challenges when they set out to read the highly-specialized scholarship of the disciplinary fields they are tasked to engage with on a daily basis at the university.
Deep vs. Surface Reading
To successfully navigate disciplinary texts, students must engage in so-called “deep reading.” Hermida (2009) notes: “A deep approach to reading is an approach where the reader uses higher-order cognitive skills such as the ability to analyze, synthesize, solve problems, and think metacognitively in order to negotiate meanings with the author and to construct new meaning from the text...the reader makes connections to already-known concepts and principles and uses this understanding for problem solving in new contexts” (p. 21). In surface reading, by contrast, readers engage superficially with the text, accepting the author’s claims rather than questioning and evaluating them; they see writing as factual and isolated, rather than subject to critical assessment and part of larger discussions within the discipline (Hermida, 2009). This kind of reading, Hermida writes, “does not promote understanding,” (2009, p. 21) and does little to support students’ growth from relative novices to competent consumers of literature, and later, to emerging scholars. Hermida notes that upon arriving at university, many students have not yet developed the skills required for deep reading, and that these skills must be taught.
Baker and colleagues (2018) report that while some notable research on reading has centered on issues of reading compliance (e.g., Hoeft, 2012), other scholars have focused on the situated nature of reading, seeing reading as “a complex repertoire of practices that are text-type and context dependent, essentially concerned with meaning making” (Baker et al., 2018, p. 149). This notion of reading as inextricably intertwined with disciplinary content, context and values, that most students are relative newcomers to, gives rise to the question of what instructors can do to build students’ capacity to meaningfully engage with readings so that these texts become effective vehicles for student learning.
Grabe and Stoller (2001) propose a three-part framework for building students’ ability to interact meaningfully with texts in ways that promote learning. Their pre-, during- and post-reading framework suggests techniques for supporting students’ reading of complex disciplinary texts at three different stages in the reading process.
Pre-reading activities (Before Reading)
Pre-reading activities are designed to prepare students to read the text. They do this in a variety of ways, for example, by activating students’ background knowledge of the content to be discussed in the readings, as well as by building students’ background knowledge when needed. Before Reading activities can also stimulate interest in the topic, uncover students’ misconceptions about the topic, and help students to better understand the structure of texts they are going to read, as well as introduce students to disciplinary values. A final benefit of Before Reading activities is that they can be used to introduce disciplinary terminology that students may not be familiar with.
During-reading activities (While Reading)
During-reading activities support students’ active engagement with the text, helping them navigate unfamiliar topics. While Reading activities support students in learning to distinguish between central ideas and supporting details, asking questions about key points in the reading, identifying the writer’s assumptions, and analyzing content, as well as argument structure.
Post-reading activities (After Reading)
Post-reading activities invite students to respond to, explore, and apply the information they’ve learned. The application function of After Reading activities asks students to use the information they’ve learned and apply it to other related disciplinary tasks. These tasks can be embedded within the course context (e.g., students complete a research paper or write a text-type common to the discipline), or can be applied outside of the course to the disciplinary field. Such external applications often engage students in authentic tasks similar to those that disciplinary experts engage in when interacting with real audiences. Students are thus provided with opportunities to integrate new knowledge with their existing knowledge, while learning information and skills they can transfer to new contexts.
The next three parts of the Engaged Reading series unpack challenges and suggestions for each stage of the reading process. As some challenges may be inherent to more than one stage of reading, the same challenges appear in more than one part of the series. In addition to this series, we also suggest referencing CEE’s resource series entitled “Designing Effective Writing Assignments,” for additional information about related strategies.
- Citation
- Turner, P., & Rossi, M. (2019). Engaged reading for learning series: Just-in-Time Teaching Resources. https://cee.ucdavis.edu/JITT
- References
- Baker, S., Bangeni, B., Burke, R., & Hunma, A. (2019). The invisibility of academic reading as social practice and its implications for equity in higher education: A scoping study. Higher Education Research & Development, 38(1), 142–156.
Bartholomae, D. (1986). Inventing the university. Journal of Basic Writing, 5(1), 4–23.
Grabe, W., & Stoller, F. L. (2001). Reading for academic purposes: Guidelines for the ESL/EFL teacher. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed., pp. 187–203).
Hermida, J. (2009). The importance of teaching academic reading skills in first-year university courses. The International Journal of Research and Review, 3, 20–30.
Hoeft, M. E. (2012). Why university students don't read: What professors can do to increase compliance. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 6(2), 12.