The Xreading website provides students with access to an extensive virtual library of graded readers. Teachers can then use it to keep track of which titles the students access, the total number of words they read, their reading speed, and also whether they have completed post-reading quizzes. However, an overreliance on monitoring student…

Required first-year English courses present instructors with a challenge common in the humanities: How do we motivate students to engage in active reading rather than passively scroll down online guides? Introductory literature courses aim to develop students' critical thinking through close reading, analysis, and argumentation--skills demanding…

When evaluating the effectiveness of their program, members of the Brooklyn College SEEK Department, a higher education opportunity program, decided to make their pedagogy more student-centered. They created a method of reading instruction, which they named critical inquiry. Its goals are to build community through teaching students to annotate,…

In order to minimize the dread which students and teachers alike often feel toward freshman composition courses, it is important to involve students in reading and writing assignments which are of interest and importance to them. Autobiography, as a subject for study and a focus for writing, can be a great motivator and an expediter of the…