The "Critical Thinking and the Art of Close Reading" series (which includes this column and three others) focuses on some of the most basic understandings necessary for close reading (Paul & Elder, 2003). To read well, in addition to having these understandings, students must be able to identify the big picture within a text, to determine the key…

Asserts that teachers should help students move beyond an information-exchange view of reading to a more complex rhetorical model of constructing meaning. Reports on a study which investigated meaning constructions and compares the more traditional function/feature strategies of constructing meaning with rhetorical strategies, which construct…

The typical college student is unable to deeply comprehend what he or she reads. Most students have few, if any, intellectual tools that would enable them to read deeply, and then apply what they have read. The "Critical Thinking and the Art of Close Reading" series (which includes this column and the past three columns) focuses on some of the…