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Micro-thread on reading for undergraduate students - thanks to @eveewing for requesting resources (and thanks to everyone who recommended my blog posts on reading strategies). Responses to her tweet are a gold mine of resources. Check them out here
As it usually happens, I have thoughts, and this time they're pretty well formulated. I do not research the actual cognitive processes of reading/writing nor do I teach composition/rhetoric/writing as an individual subject. I teach my students how to read and write policy stuff.
My students read literature from a broad range of disciplines: economics, history, political science, policy sciences, law, etc. They DO take a series of courses on argumentative writing. HOWEVER in my Public Policy Analysis class, I ensure that they know how to read/write.
I devote a substantial amount of time to teaching them how to write synthetic notes, how to write memorandums, how to synthesize their research in an Excel dump. I do this because I know they'll be confronted with writing a thesis right after my class, I want them to be prepared.
Based on my experience with my students, with my thesis advisees, and with my research assistants, I am here to tell you that before giving them any handouts on how to read you need to teach them how to write arguments, using They Say/I Say by Graf and Birkenstein.
You can disagree with me and you're welcome to do so. I have a reason why I make my students and RAs read Graf & Birkenstein before I even teach them my six-levels colour-coded highlighting/scribbling scheme. I do this so that they can recognize ARGUMENTS. People assume they can.
A lot of educators assume that their students are able to identify where a writer is speaking for him/herself and when they're paraphrasing other authors. This is NOT ALWAYS THE CASE. Graf & Birkenstein teach students how to differentiate what They Say and what I Say.
Once students are equipped with a series of templates on how to read and understand (AND WRITE) arguments, THEN you can expose them to scholarly literature in your field. (G&B is here wwnorton.com/books/97803936… and if you have good Google Fu you will find a full PDF on the web.
In previous threads I explained why when in your scholarly writing you do not use a topic sentence to start your paragraph you make it hard for students to read your work, remember? This is problematic. If they're swamped with reading material, they need heuristics on how to read
The "start your paragraph with a topic sentence with the key idea within the paragraph" rule helps people read faster through by using a simple heuristics. When you bury your key idea within the middle of a paragraph, you're asking the student to scramble and do a deep dive.
I have to run and I don't have more time to devote to this, but consider my argument for why use G&B first, for using topic sentences to start paragraphs in your own writing, eat fruits and veggies, drink lots of water, if you're so inclined, read my blog raulpacheco.org/resources/
