With changes to digital communication, differences in teaching throughout the pandemic, and larger shifts in the way that reading is taught in primary schools, faculty across campuses have wondered: “Is This the End of Reading?”
The CTL believes that reading and writing skills are still essential, and can still be taught and supported within Pratt courses. Rather than doing away with reading assignments entirely, we suggest carefully structuring reading assignments with detailed steps, guiding students through the process, and giving opportunities for peer-to-peer support.
Active reading documents (here’s a short video overview of the concept, as well as a detailed article) can provide a scaffolded structure for students to incrementally work through dense texts with guided prompts. The theory behind ARDs moves students through progressive layers of understanding: retrieval -> comprehension -> analysis -> knowledge utilization. Try working through an ARD in class first (either a whole group or small groups) to reduce the intimidation factor when students return to the text individually in a homework assignment. Guided notes can be another version of this.
Socially Engaged Reading promotes student engagement through collective annotation of course readings and other documents. In this Faculty Spotlight presentation, Lara Allen (HMS) and Amanda Matles (SSCS) show and tell about two socially engaged reading platforms, Perusall and Hypothes.is. They discuss how instructors can integrate these tools to support peer instruction, reading assignment accountability, flipped classrooms, and active learning.
Annotated readings can additionally encourage students to actively engage with the text. By close reading and annotating the text, (we recommend doing this first in-class, rather than introducing it as a homework assignment) students often indicate what their misunderstandings are. This provides helpful feedback going forwards as you continue structuring reading assignments – for example, if you notice that students frequently mis-interpret discipline-specific language, providing a vocab sheet can be helpful.
Jigsaw guided reading! Students work together, during class time, to digest and understand small chunks of the text. This can help them to familiarize themselves with the writing style of the author, and ask questions of their peers when they don’t understand something. Start with a warm-up task to encourage positive group dynamics before having them dive into a dense passage – it’s a lot easier to ask your peers for help if you’ve already gotten to know them by playing a quick game together or drawing something collaboratively.
