Studies show only 20 to 40 percent of students read assigned texts and are prepared for class discussions. To address this issue we created the "3-2-1 Reading Assignment," in which students engage in critical reading and deep learning by providing "three" points that summarize the text, "two" points that analyze it,…

Teachers in any discipline where reading matters should practice a robust scaffolding pedagogy to teach critical reading, in contrast to the more common but less direct approaches that often leave students to learn or not learn these skills themselves. In this essay, I describe how to adapt established methods for teaching writing (including…

Reading is critical to success in college. Faculty members often decry students who come to class without reading, and unprepared for the lessons of the day. Yet, relatively little empirical research assesses how to best stimulate collegiate reading and what types of reading assessments provide the best student learning outcomes. This paper…

"Using Sentiment Analysis to Ease Students toward or around Macroanalysis" introduces teachers to the mathematical analytical method currently being promoted by Matthew Jockers which he calls macroanalysis. This method uses an algorithm called "R," originally designed by researchers in sociology. In many ways, macroanalysis…

The technology company OpenAI released a generative artificial intelligence program that can create detailed written responses, write essays, poetry, code, and much more, in response to short written prompts. It had been years in the making and had been exposed to over 40 gigabytes of text, webpages, images, and other content. ChatGPT is a large…

While educators believe reading is an investment in learning and knowing, what many are not considering is what reading analytically means to civic life in the digital age when many of the old gatekeepers of traditional publishing are disappearing. As new voices have emerged, and there is an explosion of reading material, there is also less…

This dissertation explored how effectively first-year writing (FYW) evaluated and selected sources for their researched writing assignments. Though students were taught how to access sources from the library and offered sources on the course management system, most often they obtained sources via the open internet. As mis- and disinformation…

In history education, the deconstruction of narratives is an important skill for students. The skill teaches them to look critically at the offered texts. In this study, we investigated the extent to which students are able to critically analyse the narratives in their history textbooks. To answer this question, we asked 106 students in…

It is commonly accepted in the academy that developing a critical thinking capacity and related capabilities will make students more effective thinkers and writers, and that these are desirable traits for graduates to have no matter what path they take after graduation. While most academics agree that critical thinking is an essential component of…

In the later years of undergraduate study, students read, process, and evaluate primary literature within specific fields of study. Shifting from textbooks to the vast amounts of peer-reviewed current literature can be difficult for students. This article details an innovative approach to helping students successfully make this transition through…

Recognizing a need to promote critical reading among students at our STEM university, the authors implemented an active reading strategy called double-entry notes across four general education writing and humanities courses. We hypothesized that the tool would help engage students in the critical reading strategies they tended to lack. The tool…

Course readings play a crucial role in many college courses, but students often struggle to comprehend this material. Building on evidence that students benefit from playing the role of an editor when reading each other's writing, this exploratory study investigated whether they benefit from taking the same editorial stance to assigned readings.…

Proficient writers spend substantial time planning for writing, and that planning begins with analyzing the writing task. They spend time considering the topic, the audience and its needs, and the genre and form of the writing. This rhetorical analysis helps them set goals, orient their attention, and get organized. Task analysis can also help…

This case study involved a deep reading intervention, creating a way to bridge theories of contemplative practice and mindfulness into classroom practice. Participants were graduate students enrolled in Reading Literacy and Content Methods, a capstone course for teacher licensure before their practicums. The students were led through a deep…

Using Mariolina Salvatori's "difficulty paper" assignment to explore student experiences when reading, this paper examines basic writing students' difficulties with reading in the composition classroom. The authors argue that examining difficulty can provide an entry point for understanding how students experience the (dis)connections…