When students dig into a source rather than casually absorbing it, they engage in a way that models more advanced reading and evaluative skills. Everyday reading practices such as starting at the beginning of a source and reading straight through to the end may not be the best way to process and retain complicated information. This is especially true with research articles and more nuanced works that students may encounter in college but also applies to professional documentation.

Close Reading

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The practice of close reading provides one set of tools for getting the most from any source. This video differentiates between close reading as an element of the Common Core K-12 standards and how it's used in higher education, specifically in liberal arts. Both lenses are valuable.

Transcript

This video defines Common Core's version of close reading as using textual evidence to support conclusions. When including close reading practices in your teaching, you may or may not want to also practice the college-level application where it is combined with other techniques to interrogate cultural assumptions. However, at all levels, close reading encourages users to analyze any source based on observing its content and taking notes on the results.

Other Reading Strategies

Here are a few other strategies for modeling different actions that students can take while reading to train their comprehension and analysis:

Effective Reading with SQ4R. SQ4R is a structured approach to skimming and note-taking to help read a text for understanding and retention. This short video from OSLIS also has a quiz you can use directly with students.
- How does SQ4R compare with the SQ3R technique promoted by the OSU Academic Success Center?
- How does SQ4R compare to other reading strategies that you know?
The OSU Academic Success Center's guide to Reading and Writing provides introductory college-level advice on pre-reading strategies, including setting up an ideal reading environment and specific moves to make to engage with a source.
- The Preview, Read, Recall handout advises students to read a source multiple times in different ways. Can this be adapted to an in-class assignment?
- Which handouts can be used as-is? Which would require modification?
How to Read a Book. This guide, written by a University of Michigan professor, is directed at college students. Consider whether it may work for your learners, particularly in a college-prep course.
- What elements does this model share with SQ4R? Where does it differ, and why?
- The section "Focus on the parts with high information content" on page six points to common structure in non-fiction writing. The hourglass model shown below demonstrates the trend within expository writing to move from general to specific back to general in each unit of writing: the book as a whole, each chapter, each section, and each paragraph.

Formal Elements

We commonly hear from college-level instructors that incoming students feel less comfortable engaging with dense, intellectually challenging works as part of their reading assignments. While this finding comes from a series of anecdotes rather than thoroughly certified data, we do want to spend a little time dialing in on the formal aspects of books and articles that may encourage students to get the most from written works. Understanding these elements can help absorb the key points of a piece of writing and suggest whether it's worth reading in the first place.

In General

Introductions and conclusions: In many pieces of writing, the introduction and the conclusion introduce the author's main ideas. They may also provide a roadmap of the supporting ideas.
The first and last sentence of each paragraph: Similar to the introduction and the conclusion, the start and end of each paragraph tend to highlight important aspects of the argument.
Keywords: Using ctrl-f to search a digital document for keywords is no substitute for reading the entire piece, but it can be helpful to determine what sections warrant the most attention. Moreover, while looking for information sources they allow efficient searchers to quickly rule out whether a source is at all relevant to their search. Be sure to impress the importance of searching documents for synonyms and related terms as well to prevent missing key information.
Headings: Section headings provide helpful guidance on how the author organizes their information.

Books

Table of contents: Found at the front of a book. The table of contents is similar to chapter headings, but allows the user to examine more at once.
Index: Found at the end of a book. Students can see which topics the book includes. This information allows them to decide whether the book is relevant to their information need.

Articles

Abstract: The abstract is a summary of the article that briefly presents its main arguments. Some databases provide article abstracts instead of the full text.

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Middle school students are well-served by focusing on the formal aspects of information sources. This knowledge allows them to draw on general knowledge to begin analyzing a variety of sources. As students move into note-taking, it may be helpful to work in small groups or look at exemplars from their peers.

License

The Hourglass Information Structure by Paul Edwards is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Creative Commons logo By Attribution logo Non-Commercial logo