Many college courses have historically been associated with large amounts of reading. For example, many biology courses required students to read trade books such as Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" (Carson, 1962), or James Watson's "The Double Helix" (Watson, 1980), but now most instructors elect to focus students' reading on course textbooks and…

Professors have long assigned to their students works of which they were the author. The practice ranges from assigning commercially published textbooks they have written to having students buy a volume they have written and published or course packs made up of their own materials they have photocopied. Not only individual professors, but also…

Recommends teaching suggestions which focus on three broad areas: (1) strategies for teaching textbook organization; (2) strategies for using graphics to organize the information covered in the text; and (3) the use of an integrated approach to content area teaching. Cites studies to support these recommendations. (MG)