the reading assignment

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5.2 How Do You Read to Learn?

Learning objectives.

• Understand the four steps of active learning.
• Develop strategies to help you read effectively and quickly.

The four steps of active reading are almost identical to the four phases of the learning cycle—and that is no coincidence! Active reading is learning through reading the written word, so the learning cycle naturally applies. Active reading involves these steps:

• Capturing the key ideas

Let’s take a look at how to use each step when reading.

Preparing to Read

Start by thinking about why your instructor has chosen this text. Has the instructor said anything about the book or the author? Look at the table of contents; how does it compare with the course syllabus? What can you learn about the author from the front matter of the book (see Table 5.1 “Anatomy of a Textbook” )? Understanding this background will give you the context of the book and help define what is most important in the text. Doing this exercise once per textbook will give you a great deal of insight throughout the course.

Now it is time to develop a plan of attack for your assignment. Your first step in any reading assignment is to understand the context of what you are about to read. Think of your reading assignment in relation to the large themes or goals the instructor has spelled out for the class. Remember that you are not merely reading—you are reading for a purpose. What parts of a reading assignment should you pay special attention to, and what parts can you browse through? As we mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, you will be expected to do a considerable amount of reading in college, and you will not get through it all by reading each and every word with a high level of focus and mental intensity. This is why it is so important to learn to define where to invest your efforts.

Open your text to the assigned pages. What is the chapter title? Is the chapter divided into sections? What are the section titles? Which sections are longer? Are there any illustrations? What are they about? Illustrations in books cost money, so chances are the author and publisher thought these topics were particularly important, or they would not have been included. How about tables? What kinds of information do they show? Are there bold or italicized words? Are these terms you are familiar with, or are they new to you? Are you getting a sense for what is important in the chapter? Use the critical thinking skills discussed in Chapter 3 “Thinking about Thought” as you think about your observations. Why did the author choose to cover certain ideas and to highlight specific ideas with graphics or boldface fonts? What do they tell you about what will be most important for you in your course? What do you think your instructor wants you to get out of the assignment? Why?

Anatomy of a Textbook

Good textbooks are designed to help you learn, not just to present information. They differ from other types of academic publications intended to present research findings, advance new ideas, or deeply examine a specific subject. Textbooks have many features worth exploring because they can help you understand your reading better and learn more effectively. In your textbooks, look for the elements listed in the table below.

Table 5.1 Anatomy of a Textbook

Now, before actually starting to read, try to give your reading more direction. Are you ever bored when reading a textbook? Students sometimes feel that about some of their textbooks. In this step, you create a purpose or quest for your reading, and this will help you become more actively engaged and less bored.

Start by checking your attitude: if you are unhappy about the reading assignment and complaining that you even have to read it, you will have trouble with the reading. You need to get “psyched” for the assignment. Stoke your determination by setting yourself a reasonable time to complete the assignment and schedule some short breaks for yourself. Approach the reading with a sense of curiosity and thirst for new understanding. Think of yourself more as an investigator looking for answers than a student doing a homework assignment.

Take out your notebook for the class for which you are doing the reading. Remember the Cornell method of note taking from Chapter 4 “Listening, Taking Notes, and Remembering” ? You will use the same format here with a narrow column on the left and a wide column on the right. This time, with reading, approach taking notes slightly differently. In the Cornell method used for class notes, you took notes in the right column and wrote in questions and comments in the left column after class as you reviewed your notes. When using this system with reading, write your questions about the reading first in the left column (spacing them well apart so that you have plenty of room for your notes while you read in the right column). From your preliminary scanning of the pages, as described previously, you should already have questions at your fingertips.

Use your critical thinking skill of questioning what the author is saying. Turn the title of each major section of the reading into a question and write it down in your left column of your notes. For example, if the section title is “The End of the Industrial Revolution,” you might write, “What caused the Industrial Revolution to end?” If the section title is “The Chemistry of Photosynthesis,” you might write, “What chemical reactions take place to cause photosynthesis, and what are the outcomes?” Note that your questions are related to the kind of material you are hearing about in class, and they usually require not a short answer but a thoughtful, complete understanding. Ideally, you should not already know the answer to the questions you are writing! (What fun is a quest if you already know each turn and strategy? Expect to learn something new in your reading even if you are familiar with the topic already.) Finally, also in the left column, jot down any keywords that appear in boldface. You will want to discover their definitions and the significance of each as you read.

Activity: Try It Now!

OK. Time to take a break from reading this book. Choose a textbook in which you have a current reading assignment. Scan the assigned pages, looking for what is really important, and write down your questions using the Cornell method.

Now answer the following questions with a journal entry.

• Do you feel better prepared to read this assignment? How?
• Do you feel more confident?
• Do you feel less overwhelmed?
• Do you feel more focused?

________________________________________________________________________________

Alternative Approaches for Preparing to Read

In Chapter 4 “Listening, Taking Notes, and Remembering” you may have determined that you are more comfortable with the outline or concept map methods of note taking. You can use either of these methods also to prepare for reading. With the outline method, start with the chapter title as your primary heading, then create subheadings for each section, rephrasing each section title in terms of a question.

If you are more comfortable using the concept map method, start with the chapter title as your center and create branches for each section within the chapter. Make sure you phrase each item as a question.

Now you are ready to start reading actively. Start by taking a look at your notes; they are your road map. What is the question you would like to answer in the first section? Before you start reading, reflect about what you already know about the subject. Even if you don’t know anything, this step helps put you in the right mind-set to accept new material. Now read through the entire section with the objective of understanding it. Follow these tips while reading, but do not start taking notes or highlighting text at this point:

• Look for answers to the questions you wrote.
• Pay particular attention to the first and last lines of each paragraph.
• Think about the relationships among section titles, boldface words, and graphics.
• Skim quickly over parts of the section that are not related to the key questions.

After reading the section, can you answer the section question you earlier wrote in your notes? Did you discover additional questions that you should have asked or that were not evident from the title of the section? Write them down now on your notes page. Can you define the keywords used in the text? If you can’t do either of these things, go back and reread the section.

Capture the Key Ideas

Once you can answer your questions effectively and can define the new and keywords, it is time to commit these concepts to your notes and to your memory. Start by writing the answers to your questions in your notes in the right column. Also define the keywords you found in the reading.

Now is also the time to go back and reread the section with your highlighter or pencil to call out key ideas and words and make notes in your margins. Marking up your book may go against what you were told in high school, when the school owned the books and expected to use them year after year. In college, you bought the book. Make it truly yours. Although some students may tell you that you can get more cash by selling a used book that is not marked up, this should not be a concern at this time—that’s not nearly as important as understanding the reading and doing well in the class!

The purpose of marking your textbook is to make it your personal studying assistant with the key ideas called out in the text. Most readers tend to highlight too much, however, hiding key ideas in a sea of yellow lines. When it comes to highlighting, less is more. Think critically before you highlight. Your choices will have a big impact on what you study and learn for the course. Make it your objective to highlight no more than 10 percent of the text.

Use your pencil also to make annotations in the margin. Use a symbol like an exclamation mark ( ! ) or an asterisk ( * ) to mark an idea that is particularly important. Use a question mark ( ? ) to indicate something you don’t understand or are unclear about. Box new words, then write a short definition in the margin. Use “TQ” (for “test question”) or some other shorthand or symbol to signal key things that may appear in test or quiz questions. Write personal notes on items where you disagree with the author. Don’t feel you have to use the symbols listed here; create your own if you want, but be consistent. Your notes won’t help you if the first question you later have is “I wonder what I meant by that?”

If you are reading an essay from a magazine or an academic journal, remember that such articles are typically written in response to other articles. In Chapter 4 “Listening, Taking Notes, and Remembering” , you learned to be on the lookout for signal words when you listen. This applies to reading, too. You’ll need to be especially alert to signals like “according to” or “Jones argues,” which make it clear that the ideas don’t belong to the author of the piece you are reading. Be sure to note when an author is quoting someone else or summarizing another person’s position. Sometimes, students in a hurry to get through a complicated article don’t clearly distinguish the author’s ideas from the ideas the author argues against. Other words like “yet” or “however” indicate a turn from one idea to another. Words like “critical,” “significant,” and “important” signal ideas you should look at closely.

After annotating, you are ready to read the next section.

Reviewing What You Read

When you have completed each of the sections for your assignment, you should review what you have read. Start by answering these questions: “What did I learn?” and “What does it mean?” Next, write a summary of your assigned reading, in your own words, in the box at the base of your notepaper. Working from your notes, cover up the answers to your questions and answer each of your questions aloud. (Yes, out loud. Remember from Chapter 4 “Listening, Taking Notes, and Remembering” that memory is improved by using as many senses as possible?) Think about how each idea relates to material the instructor is covering in class. Think about how this new knowledge may be applied in your next class.

If the text has review questions at the end of the chapter, answer those, too. Talk to other students about the reading assignment. Merge your reading notes with your class notes and review both together. How does your reading increase your understanding of what you have covered in class and vice versa?

Strategies for Textbook Reading

The four steps to active reading provide a proven approach to effective learning from texts. Following are some strategies you can use to enhance your reading even further:

• Pace yourself. Figure out how much time you have to complete the assignment. Divide the assignment into smaller blocks rather than trying to read the entire assignment in one sitting. If you have a week to do the assignment, for example, divide the work into five daily blocks, not seven; that way you won’t be behind if something comes up to prevent you from doing your work on a given day. If everything works out on schedule, you’ll end up with an extra day for review.
• Schedule your reading. Set aside blocks of time, preferably at the time of the day when you are most alert, to do your reading assignments. Don’t just leave them for the end of the day after completing written and other assignments.
• Get yourself in the right space. Choose to read in a quiet, well-lit space. Your chair should be comfortable but provide good support. Libraries were designed for reading—they should be your first option! Don’t use your bed for reading textbooks; since the time you were read bedtime stories, you have probably associated reading in bed with preparation for sleeping. The combination of the cozy bed, comforting memories, and dry text is sure to invite some shut-eye!
• Avoid distractions. Active reading takes place in your short-term memory. Every time you move from task to task, you have to “reboot” your short-term memory and you lose the continuity of active reading. Multitasking—listening to music or texting on your cell while you read—will cause you to lose your place and force you to start over again. Every time you lose focus, you cut your effectiveness and increase the amount of time you need to complete the assignment.
• Avoid reading fatigue. Work for about fifty minutes, and then give yourself a break for five to ten minutes. Put down the book, walk around, get a snack, stretch, or do some deep knee bends. Short physical activity will do wonders to help you feel refreshed.
• Read your most difficult assignments early in your reading time, when you are freshest.
• Make your reading interesting. Try connecting the material you are reading with your class lectures or with other chapters. Ask yourself where you disagree with the author. Approach finding answers to your questions like an investigative reporter. Carry on a mental conversation with the author.

Key Takeaways

• Consider why the instructor has selected the particular text. Map the table of contents to the course syllabus.
• Understand how your textbook is put together and what features might help you with your reading.
• Plan your reading by scanning the reading assignment first, then create questions based on the section titles. These will help you focus and prioritize your reading.
• Use the Cornell method for planning your reading and recording key ideas.
• Don’t try to highlight your text as you read the first time through. At that point, it is hard to tell what is really important.
• End your reading time by reviewing your notes.
• Pace yourself and read in a quiet space with minimal distractions.

Checkpoint Exercises

List the four steps to active reading. Which one do you think will take most time? Why?

__________________________________________________________________

Think of your most difficult textbook. What features can you use to help you understand the material better?

What things most commonly distract you when you are reading? What can you do to control these distractions?

List three specific places on your campus or at home that are appropriate for you to do your reading assignments. Which is best suited? What can you do to improve that reading environment?

College Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Reading strategies & tips.

Reading is a foundational learning activity for college-level courses. Assigned readings prepare you for taking notes during lectures and provide you with additional examples and detail that might not be covered in class.  Also, according to research, readings are the second most frequent source of exam questions (Cuseo, Fecas & Thompson, 2007). 

Reading a college textbook effectively takes practice and should be approached differently than reading a novel, comic book, magazine, or website. Becoming an effective reader goes beyond completing the reading in full or highlighting text.  There are a variety of strategies you can use to read effectively and retain the information you read.

Consider the following quick tips and ideas to make the most of your reading time:

• Schedule time to read . Reading is an easy thing to put off because there is often no exact due date.  By scheduling a time each week to do your reading for each class, you are more likely to complete the reading as if it were an assignment.  Producing a study guide or set of notes from the reading can help to direct your thinking as you read.
• Set yourself up for success .  Pick a location that is conducive to reading.  Establish a reasonable goal for the reading, and a time limit for how long you’ll be working. These techniques make reading feel manageable and make it easier to get started and finish reading. 
• Choose and use a specific reading strategy .  There are many strategies that will help you actively read and retain information (PRR or SQ3R – see the handouts and videos).  By consciously choosing a way to approach your reading, you can begin the first step of exam preparation or essay writing.  Remember: good readers make stronger writers.
• Monitor your comprehension . When you finish a section, ask yourself, "What is the main idea in this section?  Could I answer an exam question about this topic?" Questions at the end of chapters are particularly good for focusing your attention and for assessing your comprehension. If you are having difficulty recalling information or answering questions about the text, search back through the text and look for key points and answers. Self-correction techniques like revisiting the text are essential to assessing your comprehension and are a hallmark technique of advanced readers (Caverly & Orlando, 1991).
• Take notes as you read . Whether they’re annotations in the margins of the book, or notes on a separate piece of paper. Engage with the reading through your notes – ask questions, answer questions, make connections, and think about how these ideas integrate with other information sources (like lecture, lab, other readings, etc.)

Want to dive in a little deeper? Take a look at Kathleen King's tips below to help you get the most out of your reading, and to read for success. You'll see that some are similar to the tips above, but some offer new approaches and ideas; see what works for you:

• Read sitting up with good light, and at a desk or table.
• Keep background noise to a minimum . Loud rock music will not make you a better reader. The same goes for other distractions: talking to roommates, kids playing nearby, television or radio. Give yourself a quiet environment so that you can concentrate on the text.
• Keep paper and pen within reach .
• Before beginning to read, think about the purpose of the reading . Why has the teacher assigned the reading? What are you supposed to get out of it? Jot down your thoughts.
• Survey the reading . Look at the title of the piece, the subheadings. What is in the dark print or stands out? Are there illustrations or graphs?
• Strategize your approach : read the introduction and conclusion, then go back and read the whole assignment, or read the first line in every paragraph to get an idea of how the ideas progress, then go back and read from the beginning.
• Scan effectively : scan the entire reading, and then focus on the most interesting or relevant parts to read in detail.
• Get a feel for what's expected of you by the reading . Pay attention to when you can skim and when you need to understand every word.
• Write as you read . Take notes and talk back to the text. Explain in detail the concepts. Mark up the pages. Ask questions. Write possible test questions. Write down what interests or bores you. Speculate about why.
• If you get stuck : think and write about where you got stuck. Contemplate why that particular place was difficult and how you might break through the block.
• Record and explore your confusion . Confusion is important because it’s the first stage in understanding.
• When the going gets difficult, and you don’t understand the reading , slow down and reread sections. Try to explain them to someone, or have someone else read the section and talk through it together.
• Break long assignments into segments . Read 10 pages (and take notes) then do something else. Later, read the next 10 pages and so on.
• Read prefaces and summaries to learn important details about the book. Look at the table of contents for information about the structure and movement of ideas. Use the index to look up specific names, places, ideas.

(Reading strategies by Dr. Kathleen King. Many of the above ideas are from a lecture by Dr. Lee Haugen, former Reading specialist at the ISU Academic Skills Center. https://www.ghc.edu/sites/default/files/StudentResources/documents/learn... )

Curious to learn more? Check out our Reading video , and hear what we have to say!

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Module 7: Study Skills

How to read for college, learning objectives.

• Identify effective reading strategies for academic texts in a variety of formats

• Preview : You can gain insight from an academic text before you even begin the reading assignment. For example, if you are assigned a nonfiction book, read the title, the back of the book, and table of contents. Previewing this information can give you an initial idea of what you’ll be reading and some useful context for thinking about it. You can also start to make connections between the new reading and knowledge you already have when you preview a text.
• Read : While you read an academic text, you should have a pen or pencil in hand. Circle or highlight key concepts. Write questions or comments in the margins or take notes in a notebook.  This will help you remember what you are reading and also build a personal connection with the subject matter.
• Summarize :After you read an academic text, it’s worth taking the time to write a short summary—even if your instructor doesn’t require it. The exercise of jotting down a few sentences or writing a short paragraph capturing the reading’s main ideas is enormously beneficial. Summarizing not only helps you understand and absorb what you read but also gives you ready study materials for exams and other assignments.
• Review : It helps to revisit what you’ve read for a quick refresher. It may not be practical to thoroughly reread assignments from start to finish, but before class discussions or tests, it’s a good idea to skim through them to identify the main points, reread any notes at the ends of chapters, and review any summaries you’ve written.

The following video covers additional active reading strategies readers can use before, during, and after the reading process.

You can view the transcript for “College Reading Strategies” here (opens in new window) .

Reading Strategies for Specialized Texts and Online Resources

In college it’s not uncommon to experience frustration with reading assignments from time to time. Because you’re doing more reading on your own outside the classroom, and with less frequent contact with instructors than you had in high school, it’s possible you’ll encounter readings that contain unfamiliar vocabulary or don’t readily make sense. Different disciplines and subjects have different writing conventions and styles, and it can take some practice to get to know them. For example, scientific articles follow a very particular format and typically contain the following sections: an abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussions. If you are used to reading literary works, such as graphic novels or poetry, it can be disorienting to encounter these new forms of writing.

Below are some strategies for making different kinds of texts more approachable.

Get to Know the Conventions

Academic texts, like scientific studies and journal articles, may have sections that are new to you. If you’re not sure what an “abstract” is, research it online or ask your instructor. Understanding the meaning and purpose of such conventions is not only helpful for reading comprehension but for writing, too.

Look up and Keep Track of Unfamiliar Terms and Phrases

Have a good college dictionary such as Merriam-Webster handy (or find it online) when you read complex academic texts, so you can look up the meaning of unfamiliar words and terms. Many textbooks also contain glossaries or “key terms” sections at the ends of chapters or the end of the book. If you can’t find the words you’re looking for in a standard dictionary, you may need one specially written for a particular discipline. For example, a medical dictionary would be a good resource for a course in anatomy and physiology.

If you circle or underline terms and phrases that appear repeatedly, you’ll have a visual reminder to review and learn them. Repetition helps to lock in these new words and their meanings get them into long-term memory, so the more you review them the more you’ll understand and feel comfortable using them.

Look for Main Ideas and Themes

As a college student, you are not expected to understand every single word or idea presented in a reading, especially if you haven’t discussed it in class yet. However, you will get more out of discussions and feel more confident about asking questions if you can identify the main idea or thesis in a reading. The thesis statement can often (but not always) be found in the introductory paragraph, and it may be introduced with a phrase like “In this essay I argue that . . .” Getting a handle on the overall reason an author wrote something (“to prove X” or “to explore Y,” for instance) gives you a framework for understanding more of the details. It’s also useful to keep track of any themes you notice in the writing. A theme may be a recurring idea, word, or image that strikes you as interesting or important: “This story is about men working in a gloomy factory, but the author keeps mentioning birds and bats and windows. Why is that?”

Get the Most of Online Reading

Reading online texts presents unique challenges for some students. For one thing, you can’t readily circle or underline key terms or passages on the screen with a pencil. For another, there can be many tempting distractions—just a quick visit to amazon.com or Facebook.

While there’s no substitute for old-fashioned self-discipline, you can take advantage of the following tips to make online reading more efficient and effective:

• Where possible, download the reading as a PDF, Word document, etc., so you can read it offline.
• Get one of the apps that allow you to disable your social media sites for specified periods of time.
• Adjust your screen to avoid glare and eye strain, and change the text font to be less distracting.

Look for Reputable Online Sources

Professors tend to assign reading from reputable print and online sources, so you can feel comfortable referencing such sources in class and for writing assignments. If you are looking for online sources independently, however, devote some time and energy to critically evaluating the quality of the source before spending time reading any resources you find there. Find out what you can about the author (if one is listed), the Web site, and any affiliated sponsors it may have. Check that the information is current and accurate against similar information on other pages.

Depending on what you are researching, sites that end in “.edu” (indicating an “education” site such as a college, university, or other academic institution) tend to be more reliable than “.com” sites, but not always. Be sure to always check where your information comes from before you cite the course.

Pay Attention to Visual Information

Images in textbooks or journals usually contain valuable information to help you more deeply grasp a topic. Graphs and charts, for instance, help show the relationship between different kinds of information or data—how a population changes over time, how a virus spreads through a population, etc.

Data-rich graphics can take longer to “read” than the text around them because they present a lot of information in a condensed form. Give yourself plenty of time to study these items, as they often provide new and lasting insights that are easy to recall later (like in the middle of an exam on that topic).

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Assignments usually ask you to demonstrate that you have immersed yourself in the course material and that you've done some thinking on your own; questions not treated at length in class often serve as assignments. Fortunately, if you've put the time into getting to know the material, then you've almost certainly begun thinking independently. In responding to assignments, keep in mind the following advice.

• Beware of straying.  Especially in the draft stage, "discussion" and "analysis" can lead you from one intrinsically interesting problem to another, then another, and then ... You may wind up following a garden of forking paths and lose your way. To prevent this, stop periodically while drafting your essay and reread the assignment. Its purposes are likely to become clearer.
• Consider the assignment in relation to previous and upcoming assignments.  Ask yourself what is new about the task you're setting out to do. Instructors often design assignments to build in complexity. Knowing where an assignment falls in this progression can help you concentrate on the specific, fresh challenges at hand.

Understanding some key words commonly used in assignments also may simplify your task. Toward this end, let's take a look at two seemingly impenetrable instructions: "discuss" and "analyze."

1. Discuss the role of gender in bringing about the French Revolution.

• "Discuss" is easy to misunderstand because the word calls to mind the oral/spoken dimension of communication. "Discuss" suggests conversation, which often is casual and undirected. In the context of an assignment, however, discussion entails fulfilling a defined and organized task: to construct an argument that considers and responds to an ample range of materials. To "discuss," in assignment language, means to make a broad argument about a set of arguments you have studied. In the case above, you can do this by
• pointing to consistencies and inconsistencies in the evidence of gendered causes of the Revolution;
• raising the implications of these consistencies and/or inconsistencies (perhaps they suggest a limited role for gender as catalyst);
• evaluating different claims about the role of gender; and
• asking what is gained and what is lost by focusing on gendered symbols, icons and events.

A weak discussion essay in response to the question above might simply list a few aspects of the Revolution—the image of Liberty, the executions of the King and Marie Antoinette, the cry "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite!" —and make separate comments about how each, being "gendered," is therefore a powerful political force. Such an essay would offer no original thesis, but instead restate the question asked in the assignment (i.e., "The role of gender was very important in the French Revolution" or "Gender did not play a large role in the French Revolution").

In a strong discussion essay, the thesis would go beyond a basic restatement of the assignment question. You might test the similarities and differences of the revolutionary aspects being discussed. You might draw on fresh or unexpected evidence, perhaps using as a source an intriguing reading that was only briefly touched upon in lecture.

2. Analyze two of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, including one not discussed in class, as literary works and in terms of sources/analogues.

The words "analyze" and "analysis" may seem to denote highly advanced, even arcane skills, possessed in virtual monopoly by mathematicians and scientists. Happily, the terms refer to mental activity we all perform regularly; the terms just need decoding. "Analyze" means two things in this specific assignment prompt.

• First, you need to divide the two tales into parts, elements, or features. You might start with a basic approach: looking at the beginning, middle, and end. These structural features of literary works—and of historical events and many other subjects of academic study—may seem simple or even simplistic, but they can yield surprising insights when examined closely.
• Alternatively, you might begin at a more complex level of analysis. For example, you might search for and distinguish between kinds of humor in the two tales and their sources in Boccaccio or the Roman de la Rose: banter, wordplay, bawdy jokes, pranks, burlesque, satire, etc.

Second, you need to consider the two tales critically to arrive at some reward for having observed how the tales are made and where they came from (their sources/analogues). In the course of your essay, you might work your way to investigating Chaucer's broader attitude toward his sources, which alternates between playful variation and strict adherence. Your complex analysis of kinds of humor might reveal differing conceptions of masculine and feminine between Chaucer and his literary sources, or some other important cultural distinction.

Analysis involves both a set of observations about the composition or workings of your subject and a critical approach that keeps you from noticing just anything—from excessive listing or summarizing—and instead leads you to construct an interpretation, using textual evidence to support your ideas.

Some Final Advice

If, having read the assignment carefully, you're still confused by it, don't hesitate to ask for clarification from your instructor. He or she may be able to elucidate the question or to furnish some sample responses to the assignment. Knowing the expectations of an assignment can help when you're feeling puzzled. Conversely, knowing the boundaries can head off trouble if you're contemplating an unorthodox approach. In either case, before you go to your instructor, it's a good idea to list, underline or circle the specific places in the assignment where the language makes you feel uncertain.

William C. Rice, for the Writing Center at Harvard University

Reading in College

Improve your reading comprehension.

Reading assignments are a common part of university courses, and it is important to get the most out of these readings. Here are a collection of tips to help you do so. 

General Reading Comprehension Tips

Put yourself in a position to succeed. Find a space where you will be able to focus—this can be in the library, Davies Student Center, a coffee shop in town, your dorm, or any number of places. Avoid reading for class while lying in bed, as it can lead to unplanned naps. Sitting upright is best. Some students prefer quiet, others find that a white noise app or instrumental music can help them focus. 

Skim the reading beforehand. Students process information better when they can see the big picture.  Before diving into the details of a reading, review the topics that will be covered and how the reading is organized.  If there are review questions at the end of the reading, make note of those as they will guide you toward the key points.   

Think about why your instructor assigned the reading. Is the reading a routine textbook assignment that is meant to preview material you will learn about in lecture? Is the reading preparing you for an in-class discussion? Are you writing a paper about the reading? Think about the reason you are reading the material and what you need to get out of the assignment.  This will help you prioritize the information and stay focused. 

Plan your reading . How long is the reading assignment?  

• If it is a thirty-page textbook chapter or twenty-page scholarly article , you should consider breaking the assignment into two or three reading sessions.  Breaking up the assignment and taking good notes will allow you to follow the information more effectively. Be sure to reread the notes you took from the previous session before jumping back into the reading. 
• Are you reading an entire book ? Get out a calendar and plan for when you will read each chapter so that you can prepare and submit your assignment on time. 

Don’t rely on highlighting. Highlighting can seem helpful in the moment, but if you highlight too many things in a reading it is not clear what is significant.  If you plan to highlight a text, be sure to read a page before highlighting anything on the page and then only highlight key terms and phrases that support those ideas. 

As you read, write down notes, questions, and reactions.  Try to finish reading a page or section before taking notes, this will help you recognize what is worth writing down. Take some time and try to summarize the point that was made on a particular page or section. As you read, keep a record of your thoughts. Did you find a passage particularly helpful in explaining a concept? Note the paragraph location and include the page number. Will a specific point be useful when you write an essay about the reading? Write down the page number, a quote, and your analysis.

• process and understand the reading 
• stay focused and engaged while reading 
• keep a record of what you read and the page numbers for specific information 

Use a system to keep your notes organized. At a minimum, writing down the author and title of the reading as well as the date you are taking notes can be helpful.  Using a digital program like OneNote or Evernote allows you to organize detailed notes for a variety of topics and classes. 

Visit your professor’s office hours . Your instructor has hours each week where students can visit their office and ask questions.  This is a good opportunity to talk to the professor about a reading and ask some questions.  Be sure to write the professor’s office hours in your planner. 

When sitting down to read a complex textbook chapter or scholarly article, the SQ3R method offers a helpful routine to stay focused and get the most out of the reading. 

Follow these steps:  

S - Survey   Q - Question   R - Read   R - Recite   R – Review  

Survey   The human brain thrives on context. Before beginning to read an assignment, survey the entirety of the text to see the general topics covered and if there are any review questions at the end. This will help you understand how the reading fits into the class and what information to key in on. Quickly flip through the pages and think about the following: 

• What type of reading is this (scholarly article, textbook, memoir, fiction)?
• Who wrote it and when?  
• How does this reading relate to the class? 
• Why did the professor assign this material? What do they want you to get from it? 
• Make note of the title, look for an abstract, author bio, or any introductory information that offers context. 
• Note section headings, sub-headings, and bolded words, charts, and graphs 
• Set a goal for how much to read. If it is a long assignment, you may want to break it into two-to-three chunks. 

Question   To follow along with a reading, one must actively engage with the material. One way of doing so is to create questions you want to answer as you read.  

• Are there questions at the end of a chapter? Try to answer those as you read.  
• You can also use questions your professor provided.  
• Use ideas you learned from the “Survey” step to create your own questions.  

Read   Having scanned the text and come up with questions you want to answer, you can now begin reading the material.  

• Try to answer the questions you posed. 
• Annotate the text and make note of main ideas, connections to other concepts, etc. 

Recite   After reading the material you set out to complete, recite aloud the answers to the questions you posed and other important ideas. 

• Try to explain the ideas in your own words. 
• Without looking at the text, try to answer the questions you wrote down. Check your work.

Review   Repetition is critical to learning. The more we engage with material, the better we understand it. After the “recite” step, it is important to look at your notes and think about the big ideas and how this reading relates to the course.  

• Review the text, your notes, and annotations. 
• Note connections between the reading you just did and other concepts from class.  
• Summarize the reading in a few sentences. 

For more support with reading comprehension, schedule a free appointment with a Peer Academic Coach !  These hour-long meetings provide students with one-on-one support from another student trained to offer support and accountability.    

Check out the following videos for additional study tips!

Works Consulted:  

“ Taking Notes While Reading.” University of North Carolina. Retrieved from https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/taking-notes-while-reading/  

“Reading Comprehension Tips.” University of North Carolina. Retrieved from https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/reading-comprehension-tips/  

“Reading Textbooks Effectively.” University of North Carolina. Retrieved from https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/reading-textbooks-effectively/  

"The SQ3R Method." Texas A & M University.  Retrieved from https://asc.tamu.edu/Study-Learning-Handouts-(1)/Reading-Strategies-SQ3R-Method

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The Honor Code

• Reading Assignments

Goals for student learning:

• Read carefully and with understanding
• Understand intellectual or disciplinary debates
• Gain a conceptual framework for in-class discussions or problem solving

Be aware that:

• Students, especially students new to your field, may complete a reading assignment quickly or shallowly.
• Students may divide up lengthy reading assignments with classmates or consult existing study guides rather than completing the reading on their own.

To encourage deep, honest, and active engagement:

• Provide students with guidance on and resources for how to read in your field; share your own reading and note-taking practices with them.
• Prioritize weekly reading assignments for students. What’s most crucial for them to complete?
• Situate a particular reading in its context or contexts (disciplinary, historical, etc.).
• Advise students on whether or how to use online synopses, syntheses, or reading guides that may be available to them.

Assignment types and examples:

• Weekly reading
• Close reading, listening, or “seeing”
• Case reading
• Observations/fieldwork
• Scientific reading
• Reading for context
• Reading for research

Resources for students:

Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams,  The Craft of Research  (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 2008) BSC Resources on Reading Amanda Claybaugh, “How to Read a Novel” and “How to Read a Scholarly Monograph” Harvard Library: Research Guides on Reading Habits Michael Mitzenmacher, “How to Read a Research Paper”

• Syllabus Design
• General Considerations
• Analytic Writing Assignments
• Problem Sets
• Problem Solving Assignments (including design assignments)
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• Sample Materials
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• Resources from Other Institutions - For Faculty
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11 Active Reading Strategies for Comprehension and Retention

Read with a purpose.

We know what active reading looks like: students reading voraciously and talking and thinking about what they read. When students are active readers, they know that reading is much more than sounding out words—it’s building vocabulary and connecting background knowledge to new learning. For students to end the year as active readers, we have to spend time engaging them in active reading every day.

What is active reading?

In short, active reading is … active. It’s students actively thinking about what they are reading, either following along with a novel, or learning more about a topic with a nonfiction text. The active part is in how students engage with each text. Rather than skimming a text to get the main idea and moving on, active reading means students are engaging in many ways with a text. They’ll think through questions before, during, and after reading. After reading, they’ll share their ideas. And as they read from text to text, they’ll build knowledge about everything from mushrooms to mysteries.

Why is active reading important?

Once students are able to read words on the page and are able to understand the basics of text, active reading helps them add purpose to reading. The more kids read, the better readers they become. And active reading strategies have been associated with improving students’ vocabulary and overall comprehension.

Active reading also helps students see real purpose in reading, so that they’re not just reading for an assignment or for school, they’re able to read to satisfy their own curiosity. Active reading starts in the classroom and can be done with any text, from science articles to biographies in history class to novels. Below are 11 ways to turn every student in your room into an active reader.

Active reading strategies to model

Get a book you’re genuinely excited about, and show students how you’re thinking as you read. It doesn’t have to be a novel—even reading through your favorite picture book and explaining what makes this book interest you can be a quick mini-lesson in active reading.

1. Ask questions

Source: Dr. Precise’s Literacy Playground

Active readers are always asking questions. When they start reading, they’re wondering why the author chose the title they did, or what an article will reveal about the topic. During reading, an active reader is constantly asking what will happen next or how the aspects of a topic fit together.

Active readers will ask questions that range from the most basic to the most advanced, so we want to make sure lessons incorporate all kinds of questions, starting with literal and advancing from there.

Source: University of Michigan

Use this list of higher-order thinking questions as you plan lessons.

2. Teach multisyllabic word reading

Source: Ms. Winter’s Bliss

Even after students have learned phonics patterns, they’ll run into words that are complicated. Advantageously , ketogenesis , and transfiguration come to mind. Having a strategy to approach longer words will help students read more complex texts, and it will support their vocabulary as they may have heard longer words before they see them in text.

Teach the BEST strategy to sound out longer words:

• Break the word apart.
• Examine each part.
• Say each part.
• Try the whole word.

3. Set a purpose for reading

Rather than diving into a text, have students do some prework. Talk about the title and what it could mean. In fiction, do they think the title refers to the setting, plot, or characters? For nonfiction, what knowledge do they bring to this reading? What questions do they already have?

Read more about questions that set a purpose for reading .

4. Set a purpose while reading

After each chapter or section, have students think about what was new and what they’re wondering about next. For fiction, have students pause after each chapter or big event to think about how the story is changing and why the author is taking it in this direction. For nonfiction, knowing what you want to know helps direct what students focus on and what information isn’t as important.

5. Teach text structure

Source: Teacher Thrive

A nonfiction text’s structure determines how we’ll approach it. Teach students the various text structures and how to approach each one at the start of their reading so they can use text structure to help them comprehend what they’re reading.

6. Preteach important vocabulary

Source: Miss DeCarbo

Building a strong vocabulary is something that all readers need, and the more kids read, the larger their vocabularies become. It is helpful to teach words that are specific to a text (Tier 3 words). Teach three to five words per text. For example, before reading a text about genetics, you may want to teach words like dominant , recessive , and allele .

7. Read around to define new words

Readers are always going to come across new words. Teach students to read around new words. When they come to a word they don’t know:

• Stop and reread the sentences before and after the word.
• Think of a potential synonym for the new word.
• Plug that synonym in and see if it makes sense.
• If it makes sense, keep reading. If it does not make sense, either try again or try another vocabulary hack, like a dictionary or asking a peer.

8. Teach annotation

Source: The Joy of Teaching

Rather than having students circle and highlight, which can get out of hand, teach them to shrink paragraphs down to less than 10 words. Every paragraph or so, stop and think about what the author is saying. Write the gist of the paragraph in 10 words or less.

9. Reread strategically

Teach students how to recognize when they need to reread (when they have read a paragraph or two and can’t tell themselves or someone else what they read). And when they are rereading, teach them how to read differently the second time around so they don’t miss the meaning. To mix it up, students could:

• Read it aloud.
• Read slower.
• Use their finger to follow along with the text.

10. Discuss daily

Have students discuss what they’re reading in pairs or small groups. Keep the focus on curiosity, not necessarily literal comprehension. To do this, focus on open-ended questions:

• What does this text make you want to learn more about?
• What surprised you most in what you read today?
• What advice would you give the author?

Some ideas for engaging students in text that don’t involve talking:

Silent discussions

Socratic seminars

Use Jamboard

Source: Building Book Love

11. Extend active reading with your classroom library

Source: Lessons With Laughter

During a unit, create a section of your classroom library that includes books that encourage students to read deeply about a topic. Or have a section that encourages students to read more broadly. For example, if you are studying volcanoes, fill one section with more nonfiction about volcanoes (and think outside the book—include lists of websites, videos, or documentaries). Then, include a section with books that feature volcanoes but aren’t necessarily nonfiction—graphic novels, mysteries, and other fiction books that incorporate volcanoes. The idea is to capture any and all student interest and help them run with it.

What are your top tips for creating a love of reading? Come share in our  WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group  on Facebook.

Plus, check out 25 surprising benefits of reading ..

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Understanding Assignments

What this handout is about.

The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment. While this sounds like a simple task, it can be a tough one. This handout will help you unravel your assignment and begin to craft an effective response. Much of the following advice will involve translating typical assignment terms and practices into meaningful clues to the type of writing your instructor expects. See our short video for more tips.

Basic beginnings

Regardless of the assignment, department, or instructor, adopting these two habits will serve you well :

• Read the assignment carefully as soon as you receive it. Do not put this task off—reading the assignment at the beginning will save you time, stress, and problems later. An assignment can look pretty straightforward at first, particularly if the instructor has provided lots of information. That does not mean it will not take time and effort to complete; you may even have to learn a new skill to complete the assignment.
• Ask the instructor about anything you do not understand. Do not hesitate to approach your instructor. Instructors would prefer to set you straight before you hand the paper in. That’s also when you will find their feedback most useful.

Assignment formats

Many assignments follow a basic format. Assignments often begin with an overview of the topic, include a central verb or verbs that describe the task, and offer some additional suggestions, questions, or prompts to get you started.

An Overview of Some Kind

The instructor might set the stage with some general discussion of the subject of the assignment, introduce the topic, or remind you of something pertinent that you have discussed in class. For example:

“Throughout history, gerbils have played a key role in politics,” or “In the last few weeks of class, we have focused on the evening wear of the housefly …”

The Task of the Assignment

Pay attention; this part tells you what to do when you write the paper. Look for the key verb or verbs in the sentence. Words like analyze, summarize, or compare direct you to think about your topic in a certain way. Also pay attention to words such as how, what, when, where, and why; these words guide your attention toward specific information. (See the section in this handout titled “Key Terms” for more information.)

“Analyze the effect that gerbils had on the Russian Revolution”, or “Suggest an interpretation of housefly undergarments that differs from Darwin’s.”

Additional Material to Think about

Here you will find some questions to use as springboards as you begin to think about the topic. Instructors usually include these questions as suggestions rather than requirements. Do not feel compelled to answer every question unless the instructor asks you to do so. Pay attention to the order of the questions. Sometimes they suggest the thinking process your instructor imagines you will need to follow to begin thinking about the topic.

“You may wish to consider the differing views held by Communist gerbils vs. Monarchist gerbils, or Can there be such a thing as ‘the housefly garment industry’ or is it just a home-based craft?”

These are the instructor’s comments about writing expectations:

“Be concise”, “Write effectively”, or “Argue furiously.”

Technical Details

These instructions usually indicate format rules or guidelines.

“Your paper must be typed in Palatino font on gray paper and must not exceed 600 pages. It is due on the anniversary of Mao Tse-tung’s death.”

The assignment’s parts may not appear in exactly this order, and each part may be very long or really short. Nonetheless, being aware of this standard pattern can help you understand what your instructor wants you to do.

Interpreting the assignment

Ask yourself a few basic questions as you read and jot down the answers on the assignment sheet:

Why did your instructor ask you to do this particular task?

Who is your audience.

• What kind of evidence do you need to support your ideas?

What kind of writing style is acceptable?

• What are the absolute rules of the paper?

Try to look at the question from the point of view of the instructor. Recognize that your instructor has a reason for giving you this assignment and for giving it to you at a particular point in the semester. In every assignment, the instructor has a challenge for you. This challenge could be anything from demonstrating an ability to think clearly to demonstrating an ability to use the library. See the assignment not as a vague suggestion of what to do but as an opportunity to show that you can handle the course material as directed. Paper assignments give you more than a topic to discuss—they ask you to do something with the topic. Keep reminding yourself of that. Be careful to avoid the other extreme as well: do not read more into the assignment than what is there.

Of course, your instructor has given you an assignment so that he or she will be able to assess your understanding of the course material and give you an appropriate grade. But there is more to it than that. Your instructor has tried to design a learning experience of some kind. Your instructor wants you to think about something in a particular way for a particular reason. If you read the course description at the beginning of your syllabus, review the assigned readings, and consider the assignment itself, you may begin to see the plan, purpose, or approach to the subject matter that your instructor has created for you. If you still aren’t sure of the assignment’s goals, try asking the instructor. For help with this, see our handout on getting feedback .

Given your instructor’s efforts, it helps to answer the question: What is my purpose in completing this assignment? Is it to gather research from a variety of outside sources and present a coherent picture? Is it to take material I have been learning in class and apply it to a new situation? Is it to prove a point one way or another? Key words from the assignment can help you figure this out. Look for key terms in the form of active verbs that tell you what to do.

Key Terms: Finding Those Active Verbs

Here are some common key words and definitions to help you think about assignment terms:

Information words Ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why.

• define —give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning
• describe —provide details about the subject by answering question words (such as who, what, when, where, how, and why); you might also give details related to the five senses (what you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell)
• explain —give reasons why or examples of how something happened
• illustrate —give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject
• summarize —briefly list the important ideas you learned about the subject
• trace —outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form
• research —gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you have found

Relation words Ask you to demonstrate how things are connected.

• compare —show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different)
• contrast —show how two or more things are dissimilar
• apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation
• cause —show how one event or series of events made something else happen
• relate —show or describe the connections between things

Interpretation words Ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Do not see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation.

• assess —summarize your opinion of the subject and measure it against something
• prove, justify —give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth
• evaluate, respond —state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons
• support —give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe)
• synthesize —put two or more things together that have not been put together in class or in your readings before; do not just summarize one and then the other and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together that runs all the way through the paper
• analyze —determine how individual parts create or relate to the whole, figure out how something works, what it might mean, or why it is important
• argue —take a side and defend it with evidence against the other side

More Clues to Your Purpose As you read the assignment, think about what the teacher does in class:

• What kinds of textbooks or coursepack did your instructor choose for the course—ones that provide background information, explain theories or perspectives, or argue a point of view?
• In lecture, does your instructor ask your opinion, try to prove her point of view, or use keywords that show up again in the assignment?
• What kinds of assignments are typical in this discipline? Social science classes often expect more research. Humanities classes thrive on interpretation and analysis.
• How do the assignments, readings, and lectures work together in the course? Instructors spend time designing courses, sometimes even arguing with their peers about the most effective course materials. Figuring out the overall design to the course will help you understand what each assignment is meant to achieve.

Now, what about your reader? Most undergraduates think of their audience as the instructor. True, your instructor is a good person to keep in mind as you write. But for the purposes of a good paper, think of your audience as someone like your roommate: smart enough to understand a clear, logical argument, but not someone who already knows exactly what is going on in your particular paper. Remember, even if the instructor knows everything there is to know about your paper topic, he or she still has to read your paper and assess your understanding. In other words, teach the material to your reader.

Aiming a paper at your audience happens in two ways: you make decisions about the tone and the level of information you want to convey.

• Tone means the “voice” of your paper. Should you be chatty, formal, or objective? Usually you will find some happy medium—you do not want to alienate your reader by sounding condescending or superior, but you do not want to, um, like, totally wig on the man, you know? Eschew ostentatious erudition: some students think the way to sound academic is to use big words. Be careful—you can sound ridiculous, especially if you use the wrong big words.
• The level of information you use depends on who you think your audience is. If you imagine your audience as your instructor and she already knows everything you have to say, you may find yourself leaving out key information that can cause your argument to be unconvincing and illogical. But you do not have to explain every single word or issue. If you are telling your roommate what happened on your favorite science fiction TV show last night, you do not say, “First a dark-haired white man of average height, wearing a suit and carrying a flashlight, walked into the room. Then a purple alien with fifteen arms and at least three eyes turned around. Then the man smiled slightly. In the background, you could hear a clock ticking. The room was fairly dark and had at least two windows that I saw.” You also do not say, “This guy found some aliens. The end.” Find some balance of useful details that support your main point.

You’ll find a much more detailed discussion of these concepts in our handout on audience .

The Grim Truth

With a few exceptions (including some lab and ethnography reports), you are probably being asked to make an argument. You must convince your audience. It is easy to forget this aim when you are researching and writing; as you become involved in your subject matter, you may become enmeshed in the details and focus on learning or simply telling the information you have found. You need to do more than just repeat what you have read. Your writing should have a point, and you should be able to say it in a sentence. Sometimes instructors call this sentence a “thesis” or a “claim.”

So, if your instructor tells you to write about some aspect of oral hygiene, you do not want to just list: “First, you brush your teeth with a soft brush and some peanut butter. Then, you floss with unwaxed, bologna-flavored string. Finally, gargle with bourbon.” Instead, you could say, “Of all the oral cleaning methods, sandblasting removes the most plaque. Therefore it should be recommended by the American Dental Association.” Or, “From an aesthetic perspective, moldy teeth can be quite charming. However, their joys are short-lived.”

Convincing the reader of your argument is the goal of academic writing. It doesn’t have to say “argument” anywhere in the assignment for you to need one. Look at the assignment and think about what kind of argument you could make about it instead of just seeing it as a checklist of information you have to present. For help with understanding the role of argument in academic writing, see our handout on argument .

What kind of evidence do you need?

There are many kinds of evidence, and what type of evidence will work for your assignment can depend on several factors–the discipline, the parameters of the assignment, and your instructor’s preference. Should you use statistics? Historical examples? Do you need to conduct your own experiment? Can you rely on personal experience? See our handout on evidence for suggestions on how to use evidence appropriately.

Make sure you are clear about this part of the assignment, because your use of evidence will be crucial in writing a successful paper. You are not just learning how to argue; you are learning how to argue with specific types of materials and ideas. Ask your instructor what counts as acceptable evidence. You can also ask a librarian for help. No matter what kind of evidence you use, be sure to cite it correctly—see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial .

You cannot always tell from the assignment just what sort of writing style your instructor expects. The instructor may be really laid back in class but still expect you to sound formal in writing. Or the instructor may be fairly formal in class and ask you to write a reflection paper where you need to use “I” and speak from your own experience.

Try to avoid false associations of a particular field with a style (“art historians like wacky creativity,” or “political scientists are boring and just give facts”) and look instead to the types of readings you have been given in class. No one expects you to write like Plato—just use the readings as a guide for what is standard or preferable to your instructor. When in doubt, ask your instructor about the level of formality she or he expects.

No matter what field you are writing for or what facts you are including, if you do not write so that your reader can understand your main idea, you have wasted your time. So make clarity your main goal. For specific help with style, see our handout on style .

Technical details about the assignment

The technical information you are given in an assignment always seems like the easy part. This section can actually give you lots of little hints about approaching the task. Find out if elements such as page length and citation format (see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial ) are negotiable. Some professors do not have strong preferences as long as you are consistent and fully answer the assignment. Some professors are very specific and will deduct big points for deviations.

Usually, the page length tells you something important: The instructor thinks the size of the paper is appropriate to the assignment’s parameters. In plain English, your instructor is telling you how many pages it should take for you to answer the question as fully as you are expected to. So if an assignment is two pages long, you cannot pad your paper with examples or reword your main idea several times. Hit your one point early, defend it with the clearest example, and finish quickly. If an assignment is ten pages long, you can be more complex in your main points and examples—and if you can only produce five pages for that assignment, you need to see someone for help—as soon as possible.

Tricks that don’t work

Your instructors are not fooled when you:

• spend more time on the cover page than the essay —graphics, cool binders, and cute titles are no replacement for a well-written paper.
• use huge fonts, wide margins, or extra spacing to pad the page length —these tricks are immediately obvious to the eye. Most instructors use the same word processor you do. They know what’s possible. Such tactics are especially damning when the instructor has a stack of 60 papers to grade and yours is the only one that low-flying airplane pilots could read.
• use a paper from another class that covered “sort of similar” material . Again, the instructor has a particular task for you to fulfill in the assignment that usually relates to course material and lectures. Your other paper may not cover this material, and turning in the same paper for more than one course may constitute an Honor Code violation . Ask the instructor—it can’t hurt.
• get all wacky and “creative” before you answer the question . Showing that you are able to think beyond the boundaries of a simple assignment can be good, but you must do what the assignment calls for first. Again, check with your instructor. A humorous tone can be refreshing for someone grading a stack of papers, but it will not get you a good grade if you have not fulfilled the task.

Critical reading of assignments leads to skills in other types of reading and writing. If you get good at figuring out what the real goals of assignments are, you are going to be better at understanding the goals of all of your classes and fields of study.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Engaging Students with the Reading

This article explores five strategies for helping students engage thoroughly and thoughtfully with reading assignments. Use the techniques that resonate with your own particular needs in the classroom.

• Align readings with assignments and the unit’s learning goals.
• Develop a predictable flow for a typical week of the course. Consider carefully how readings fit into this flow.
• Tie a formative assessment or an activity to the reading. Clearly incorporate the reading into your class discussions.
• Have students reflect on how readings and resources were incorporated into their assignments/projects.
• Explain how you want students to do the reading.

Align readings with assignments and learning goals

Using the Backwards Design technique can help you tailor readings to your course goals and demonstrate the relevance of the material for your students. Backwards Design is part of the Understanding by Design framework .

The basic concept is to follow these steps (in this order):

• Figure out what you want students to be able to do at the end of the unit
• Determine how you will assess whether students have achieved the desired learning outcomes. Determine the assignments / projects that students will do.
• Plan the readings, learning experience and instruction

By ensuring that the readings align tightly with the goals of the unit and the assignments the students are doing, you can help students see the relevance of the readings to the work they are doing. Don’t assume that students will automatically grasp this relevance, though. It may be helpful to start each week with a quick overview of how the week’s readings and activities build toward certain competencies and skills.

We have developed a  Backwards Design Form  that can help you design your course.

Develop a predictable flow for a typical week of the course

Students benefit from transparency and clarity about when tasks are due and how they contribute to other learning activities. One way to provide this clarity is to make the cycle of readings and activities in a week predictable. Consider carefully how readings fit into this flow. Do students read the text before you discuss the concepts in class, or do you lecture first on the topic before they read about it? You might have students read (or watch videos) to prepare for class discussion and activities, or you might use readings to advance them to the next level, or you might clearly delineate which readings are required before certain activities and which provide further enrichment or review. Clarity is key!

As an example, here is a diagram of the flow used in an introductory programming course at Champlain College. This diagram was presented to students during the first week of class in order to familiarize them with the expectations of the course. Your week’s flow and how readings are tied to it may vary.

Tie a formative assessment or an activity to the reading

Basically, have an assignment or quiz for every reading in your course. Here are three examples that have worked well in other courses. Contact the CLT if you are looking for more ideas or require help setting these up in Canvas.

Using the Canvas Quiz for reading assessments

Create a weekly quiz tied to the reading. Again, predictability is good! For each quiz, start with the same question:

Did you find anything difficult or confusing in the reading? Which parts? If you didn’t find anything difficult or confusing, describe what did you find most interesting. What questions about the reading do you want to see answered in class?

Each week add a few additional questions that test students’ understanding of the material and whether they did the reading. This is based on techniques developed and researched by Erik Mazur . You may wish to consider grading these quizzes based on completion if you do so with other iterative assignments.

Use an online discussion to jumpstart a discussion you’ll continue in class

Canvas discussions are not necessarily a substitute for class discussion; they can be a powerful tool for avoiding the awkward silence at the beginning of an in-class discussion. If you’ve ever wondered whether any students have done the reading, this is a great option for dispelling that feeling. Your discussion prompt should have no single right answer. We suggest making the post due at least an hour before the start of class so you have time to skim the responses.

Some example prompts are:

• What did you find confusing in the reading? Formulate a question you might ask your instructor or peers to help you understand better.
• How will you apply the concepts you learned in the reading to your final project?
• Connect the concepts in the reading to a current event. How do these concepts inform your understanding of the event in the news?

Incorporate the reading into your class activties

While seemingly straight forward, surprisingly often we forget as instructors to highlight and refer to the readings in class. This can leave students wondering what the reading has to do with class, and less likely to do it for future classes. Use specific references to the reading–difficult passages, examples or case studies that deserve further explanation or review, or exercises that ask students to apply a portion of the readings–to show students how the reading matters and simultaneously ensure that they understand and can use it.

Have students reflect on how they incorporated readings into their assignments

Incorporate a reflective component in student assignments. This can take various forms, like requiring the use of at least one class reading in a research project, asking students to use a method described in a reading and explaining why it was chosen, or assigning a separate short written reflection as a component of a project. 

Explain how you want students to do the reading

Sometimes students struggle to know how to do the reading. You may know what you want them to take away from it, but that does not mean they do.

Consider requiring specific reading activities, like taking notes that they submit later, producing a discussion question based on the reading each week, or using a collaborative annotation tool like Hypothesis or Perusall .

Also consider telling students what to read for . Are there particular sections of an assigned reading that are more important (or less important)? Is there a topic in the reading you plan to spend a lot of time on, or that students often find difficult? Letting students know where to focus their attention can help them read more productively.

These are not the only ways you can help students engage with reading! Regardless of which approaches you choose, remember that clarity and transparency help motivate students and enable them to strategize about their workload. Associating tasks with readings provides an additional reason to read promptly and allows you to assess comprehension and growth.

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• Effective Teaching Strategies

Making the Review of Assigned Reading Meaningful

• December 16, 2011
• Sarah K. Clark PhD

The typical college student dreads hearing, “Let’s review the chapters you read for homework.” What generally ensues is a question and answer drill in which students are peppered with questions designed to make clear who has and hasn’t done the reading. In reality, these exchanges do little to encourage deep thought or understanding of the assigned reading. They produce awkward silences during which students squirm in their seats, hoping to become invisible. Other times students decline to answer for fear of giving the wrong answer. Almost all the time a negative tone permeates the classroom during this review. I decided to restructure the way that I approached reviews of reading assignments, and found that by doing things differently, I could change both the tone and outcomes of the review activity. I’d like to share some of the ideas and techniques that I have found useful:

The Top Ten – Ask students to create their own “Top Ten List” of important concepts presented in the chapter(s). I encourage student collaboration in the creation of these lists. The activity provides a nice review of the material, and you’ll be amazed at what students consider to be most important. I use these lists as a starting point for discussions. They also let me know what areas of content need further explanation. For students who didn’t do the reading, the lists expose them to ideas in the text and that prepares them at least a bit for the subject of the day.

Secondary Sources – Gone are the days when the textbook is the only source of information available to students. With blogs, research articles, journals, informational pages, and news websites at the touch of a fingertip, students can easily learn more about the subject. After they’ve done the assigned readings, have students locate another viewpoint on the subject and bring it to class. In class, set a time limit (say 15 minutes) and have partners/groups discuss the reading material and their secondary sources. As you circulate around the room, you may hear some good examples that you can use later in the period. Interestingly, students often (without being asked) continue to bring in outside resources on the topics we study, which makes for rich and healthy discussions.

Journaling – For the ideas presented in the readings to become relevant, students need to articulate thoughts about what they are reading and they need to hear how others responded as well. I encourage my students to write journal notes, which I describe as what the brain is thinking while reading. Example: “Wow! I never considered how George Washington must have felt during this turbulent time in the nation’s history. I always thought of him as liking his role as president.” Students can share their journaling with a partner or small group. This exercise helps students get past initial impressions, and it connects what they already know to the new information.

Divide and Conquer – Divide up the next reading chapter among small groups of students. Student A reads the first section in the chapter, Student B reads the next section, and so forth. The next day, students meet in small groups and report on the section they read. Or you can have groups of students that read the same section meet with students who read different sections. Students become dependent on one another to create the full picture of what was in the reading material. My students seem to enjoy these group discussions, which are a way to become familiar with the material before being graded on it.

Using these and other strategies has really made a difference in my classes. More students are engaged in and contributing to class discussions, and they are moving beyond a simple repetition of facts and details. Students are digging deeper and connecting their world with other viewpoints, and that gives them a richer understanding of the content.

These new approaches are having an effect on me, too. I am more calm and confident in my role as a teacher and a learner. I find it easier to be more patient and thoughtful with my students. Most important, I have noticed that the classroom feels like a safe and positive place. Students show greater respect for one another and more appreciation of the material. In my opinion, all these responses make these changes worthwhile!

Dr. Sarah K. Clark is an assistant professor of elementary education at Utah State University.

Reprinted from “Making the Review of Assigned Reading Meaningful.” The Teaching Professor , 24.9 (2010): 2-3.

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3.3 Effective Reading Strategies

Questions to Consider:

• What methods can you incorporate into your routine to allow adequate time for reading?
• What are the benefits and approaches to active and critical reading?
• Do your courses or major have specific reading requirements?

Allowing Adequate Time for Reading

You should determine the reading requirements and expectations for every class very early in the semester. You also need to understand why you are reading the particular text you are assigned. Do you need to read closely for minute details that determine cause and effect? Or is your instructor asking you to skim several sources so you become more familiar with the topic? Knowing this reasoning will help you decide your timing, what notes to take, and how best to undertake the reading assignment.

Depending on the makeup of your schedule, you may end up reading both primary sources—such as legal documents, historic letters, or diaries—as well as textbooks, articles, and secondary sources, such as summaries or argumentative essays that use primary sources to stake a claim. You may also need to read current journalistic texts to stay up to date in local or global affairs. A realistic approach to scheduling your time to allow you to read and review all the reading you have for the semester will help you accomplish what can sometimes seem like an overwhelming task.

When you allow adequate time in your hectic schedule for reading, you are investing in your own success. Reading isn’t a magic pill, but it may seem like it when you consider all the benefits people reap from this ordinary practice. Famous successful people throughout history have been voracious readers. In fact, former U.S. president Harry Truman once said, “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” Writer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, inventor, and also former U.S. president Thomas Jefferson claimed “I cannot live without books” at a time when keeping and reading books was an expensive pastime. Knowing what it meant to be kept from the joys of reading, 19th-century abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” And finally, George R. R. Martin, the prolific author of the wildly successful Game of Thrones empire, declared, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.”

You can make time for reading in a number of ways that include determining your usual reading pace and speed, scheduling active reading sessions, and practicing recursive reading strategies.

Determining Reading Speed and Pacing

To determine your reading speed, select a section of text—passages in a textbook or pages in a novel. Time yourself reading that material for exactly 5 minutes, and note how much reading you accomplished in those 5 minutes. Multiply the amount of reading you accomplished in 5 minutes by 12 to determine your average reading pace (5 times 12 equals the 60 minutes of an hour). Of course, your reading pace will be different and take longer if you are taking notes while you read, but this calculation of reading pace gives you a good way to estimate your reading speed that you can adapt to other forms of reading.

In the table above, you can see three students with different reading speeds. So, for instance, if Marta was able to read 4 pages of a dense novel for her English class in 5 minutes, she should be able to read about 48 pages in one hour. Knowing this, Marta can accurately determine how much time she needs to devote to finishing the novel within a set amount of time, instead of just guessing. If the novel Marta is reading is 497 pages, then Marta would take the total page count (497) and divide that by her hourly reading rate (48 pages/hour) to determine that she needs about 10 to 11 hours overall. To finish the novel spread out over two weeks, Marta needs to read a little under an hour a day to accomplish this goal.

Calculating your reading rate in this manner does not take into account days where you’re too distracted and you have to reread passages or days when you just aren’t in the mood to read. And your reading rate will likely vary depending on how dense the content you’re reading is (e.g., a complex textbook vs. a comic book). Your pace may slow down somewhat if you are not very interested in what the text is about. What this method will help you do is be realistic about your reading time as opposed to waging a guess based on nothing and then becoming worried when you have far more reading to finish than the time available.

Chapter 2 , “ Managing Your Time and Priorities ,” offers more detail on how best to determine your speed from one type of reading to the next so you are better able to schedule your reading.

Scheduling Set Times for Active Reading

Active reading takes longer than reading through passages without stopping. You may not need to read your latest sci-fi series actively while you’re lounging on the beach, but many other reading situations demand more attention from you. Active reading is particularly important for college courses. You are a scholar actively engaging with the text by posing questions, seeking answers, and clarifying any confusing elements. Plan to spend at least twice as long to read actively than to read passages without taking notes or otherwise marking select elements of the text.

To determine the time you need for active reading, use the same calculations you use to determine your traditional reading speed and double it. Remember that you need to determine your reading pace for all the classes you have in a particular semester and multiply your speed by the number of classes you have that require different types of reading. The table below shows the differences in time needed between reading quickly without taking notes and reading actively.

Practicing Recursive Reading Strategies

One fact about reading for college courses that may become frustrating is that, in a way, it never ends. For all the reading you do, you end up doing even more rereading. It may be the same content, but you may be reading the passage more than once to detect the emphasis the writer places on one aspect of the topic or how frequently the writer dismisses a significant counterargument. This rereading is called recursive reading.

For most of what you read at the college level, you are trying to make sense of the text for a specific purpose—not just because the topic interests or entertains you. You need your full attention to decipher everything that’s going on in complex reading material—and you even need to be considering what the writer of the piece may not be including and why. This is why reading for comprehension is recursive.

Specifically, this boils down to seeing reading not as a formula but as a process that is far more circular than linear. You may read a selection from beginning to end, which is an excellent starting point, but for comprehension, you’ll need to go back and reread passages to determine meaning and make connections between the reading and the bigger learning environment that led you to the selection—that may be a single course or a program in your college, or it may be the larger discipline, such as all biologists or the community of scholars studying beach erosion.

People often say writing is rewriting. For college courses, reading is rereading, but rereading with the intention of improving comprehension and taking notes.

Strong readers engage in numerous steps, sometimes combining more than one step simultaneously, but knowing the steps nonetheless. They include, not always in this order:

• bringing any prior knowledge about the topic to the reading session,
• asking yourself pertinent questions, both orally and in writing, about the content you are reading,
• inferring and/or implying information from what you read,
• learning unfamiliar discipline-specific terms,
• evaluating what you are reading, and eventually,
• applying what you’re reading to other learning and life situations you encounter.

Let’s break these steps into manageable chunks, because you are actually doing quite a lot when you read.

Accessing Prior Knowledge

When you read, you naturally think of anything else you may know about the topic, but when you read deliberately and actively, you make yourself more aware of accessing this prior knowledge. Have you ever watched a documentary about this topic? Did you study some aspect of it in another class? Do you have a hobby that is somehow connected to this material? All of this thinking will help you make sense of what you are reading.

Application

Imagine that you were given a chapter to read in your American history class about the Gettysburg Address, now write down what you already know about this historic document. How might thinking through this prior knowledge help you better understand the text?

Asking Questions

Humans are naturally curious beings. As you read actively, you should be asking questions about the topic you are reading. Don’t just say the questions in your mind; write them down. You may ask: Why is this topic important? What is the relevance of this topic currently? Was this topic important a long time ago but irrelevant now? Why did my professor assign this reading?

You need a place where you can actually write down these questions; a separate page in your notes is a good place to begin. If you are taking notes on your computer, start a new document and write down the questions. Leave some room to answer the questions when you begin and again after you read.

Inferring and Implying

When you read, you can take the information on the page and infer , or conclude responses to related challenges from evidence or from your own reasoning. A student will likely be able to infer what material the professor will include on an exam by taking good notes throughout the classes leading up to the test.

Writers may imply information without directly stating a fact for a variety of reasons. Sometimes a writer may not want to come out explicitly and state a bias, but may imply or hint at his or her preference for one political party or another. You have to read carefully to find implications because they are indirect, but watching for them will help you comprehend the whole meaning of a passage.

Learning Vocabulary

Vocabulary specific to certain disciplines helps practitioners in that field engage and communicate with each other. Few people beyond undertakers and archeologists likely use the term sarcophagus in everyday communications, but for those disciplines, it is a meaningful distinction. Looking at the example, you can use context clues to figure out the meaning of the term sarcophagus because it is something undertakers and/or archeologists would recognize. At the very least, you can guess that it has something to do with death. As a potential professional in the field you’re studying, you need to know the lingo. You may already have a system in place to learn discipline-specific vocabulary, so use what you know works for you. Two strong strategies are to look up words in a dictionary (online or hard copy) to ensure you have the exact meaning for your discipline and to keep a dedicated list of words you see often in your reading. You can list the words with a short definition so you have a quick reference guide to help you learn the vocabulary.

Intelligent people always question and evaluate. This doesn’t mean they don’t trust others; they just need verification of facts to understand a topic well. It doesn’t make sense to learn incomplete or incorrect information about a subject just because you didn’t take the time to evaluate all the sources at your disposal. When early explorers were afraid to sail the world for fear of falling off the edge, they weren’t stupid; they just didn’t have all the necessary data to evaluate the situation.

When you evaluate a text, you are seeking to understand the presented topic. Depending on how long the text is, you will perform a number of steps and repeat many of these steps to evaluate all the elements the author presents. When you evaluate a text, you need to do the following:

• Scan the title and all headings.
• Read through the entire passage fully.
• Question what main point the author is making.
• Decide who the audience is.
• Identify what evidence/support the author uses.
• Consider if the author presents a balanced perspective on the main point.
• Recognize if the author introduced any biases in the text.

When you go through a text looking for each of these elements, you need to go beyond just answering the surface question; for instance, the audience may be a specific field of scientists, but could anyone else understand the text with some explanation? Why would that be important?

Analysis Question

Think of an article you need to read for a class. Take the steps above on how to evaluate a text, and apply the steps to the article. When you accomplish the task in each step, ask yourself and take notes to answer the question: Why is this important? For example, when you read the title, does that give you any additional information that will help you comprehend the text? If the text were written for a different audience, what might the author need to change to accommodate that group? How does an author’s bias distort an argument? This deep evaluation allows you to fully understand the main ideas and place the text in context with other material on the same subject, with current events, and within the discipline.

When you learn something new, it always connects to other knowledge you already have. One challenge we have is applying new information. It may be interesting to know the distance to the moon, but how do we apply it to something we need to do? If your biology instructor asked you to list several challenges of colonizing Mars and you do not know much about that planet’s exploration, you may be able to use your knowledge of how far Earth is from the moon to apply it to the new task. You may have to read several other texts in addition to reading graphs and charts to find this information.

That was the challenge the early space explorers faced along with myriad unknowns before space travel was a more regular occurrence. They had to take what they already knew and could study and read about and apply it to an unknown situation. These explorers wrote down their challenges, failures, and successes, and now scientists read those texts as a part of the ever-growing body of text about space travel. Application is a sophisticated level of thinking that helps turn theory into practice and challenges into successes.

Preparing to Read for Specific Disciplines in College

Different disciplines in college may have specific expectations, but you can depend on all subjects asking you to read to some degree. In this college reading requirement, you can succeed by learning to read actively, researching the topic and author, and recognizing how your own preconceived notions affect your reading. Reading for college isn’t the same as reading for pleasure or even just reading to learn something on your own because you are casually interested.

In college courses, your instructor may ask you to read articles, chapters, books, or primary sources (those original documents about which we write and study, such as letters between historic figures or the Declaration of Independence). Your instructor may want you to have a general background on a topic before you dive into that subject in class, so that you know the history of a topic, can start thinking about it, and can engage in a class discussion with more than a passing knowledge of the issue.

If you are about to participate in an in-depth six-week consideration of the U.S. Constitution but have never read it or anything written about it, you will have a hard time looking at anything in detail or understanding how and why it is significant. As you can imagine, a great deal has been written about the Constitution by scholars and citizens since the late 1700s when it was first put to paper (that’s how they did it then). While the actual document isn’t that long (about 12–15 pages depending on how it is presented), learning the details on how it came about, who was involved, and why it was and still is a significant document would take a considerable amount of time to read and digest. So, how do you do it all? Especially when you may have an instructor who drops hints that you may also love to read a historic novel covering the same time period . . . in your spare time , not required, of course! It can be daunting, especially if you are taking more than one course that has time-consuming reading lists. With a few strategic techniques, you can manage it all, but know that you must have a plan and schedule your required reading so you are also able to pick up that recommended historic novel—it may give you an entirely new perspective on the issue.

Strategies for Reading in College Disciplines

No universal law exists for how much reading instructors and institutions expect college students to undertake for various disciplines. Suffice it to say, it’s a LOT.

For most students, it is the volume of reading that catches them most off guard when they begin their college careers. A full course load might require 10–15 hours of reading per week, some of that covering content that will be more difficult than the reading for other courses.

You cannot possibly read word-for-word every single document you need to read for all your classes. That doesn’t mean you give up or decide to only read for your favorite classes or concoct a scheme to read 17 percent for each class and see how that works for you. You need to learn to skim, annotate, and take notes. All of these techniques will help you comprehend more of what you read, which is why we read in the first place. We’ll talk more later about annotating and note-taking, but for now consider what you know about skimming as opposed to active reading.

Skimming is not just glancing over the words on a page (or screen) to see if any of it sticks. Effective skimming allows you to take in the major points of a passage without the need for a time-consuming reading session that involves your active use of notations and annotations. Often you will need to engage in that painstaking level of active reading, but skimming is the first step—not an alternative to deep reading. The fact remains that neither do you need to read everything nor could you possibly accomplish that given your limited time. So learn this valuable skill of skimming as an accompaniment to your overall study tool kit, and with practice and experience, you will fully understand how valuable it is.

When you skim, look for guides to your understanding: headings, definitions, pull quotes, tables, and context clues. Textbooks are often helpful for skimming—they may already have made some of these skimming guides in bold or a different color, and chapters often follow a predictable outline. Some even provide an overview and summary for sections or chapters. Use whatever you can get, but don’t stop there. In textbooks that have some reading guides, or especially in texts that do not, look for introductory words such as First or The purpose of this article  . . . or summary words such as In conclusion  . . . or Finally . These guides will help you read only those sentences or paragraphs that will give you the overall meaning or gist of a passage or book.

Now move to the meat of the passage. You want to take in the reading as a whole. For a book, look at the titles of each chapter if available. Read each chapter’s introductory paragraph and determine why the writer chose this particular order. Depending on what you’re reading, the chapters may be only informational, but often you’re looking for a specific argument. What position is the writer claiming? What support, counterarguments, and conclusions is the writer presenting?

Don’t think of skimming as a way to buzz through a boring reading assignment. It is a skill you should master so you can engage, at various levels, with all the reading you need to accomplish in college. End your skimming session with a few notes—terms to look up, questions you still have, and an overall summary. And recognize that you likely will return to that book or article for a more thorough reading if the material is useful.

Active Reading Strategies

Active reading differs significantly from skimming or reading for pleasure. You can think of active reading as a sort of conversation between you and the text (maybe between you and the author, but you don’t want to get the author’s personality too involved in this metaphor because that may skew your engagement with the text).

When you sit down to determine what your different classes expect you to read and you create a reading schedule to ensure you complete all the reading, think about when you should read the material strategically, not just how to get it all done . You should read textbook chapters and other reading assignments before you go into a lecture about that information. Don’t wait to see how the lecture goes before you read the material, or you may not understand the information in the lecture. Reading before class helps you put ideas together between your reading and the information you hear and discuss in class.

Different disciplines naturally have different types of texts, and you need to take this into account when you schedule your time for reading class material. For example, you may look at a poem for your world literature class and assume that it will not take you long to read because it is relatively short compared to the dense textbook you have for your economics class. But reading and understanding a poem can take a considerable amount of time when you realize you may need to stop numerous times to review the separate word meanings and how the words form images and connections throughout the poem.

The SQ3R Reading Strategy

You may have heard of the SQ3R method for active reading in your early education. This valuable technique is perfect for college reading. The title stands for S urvey, Q uestion, R ead, R ecite, R eview, and you can use the steps on virtually any assigned passage. Designed by Francis Pleasant Robinson in his 1961 book Effective Study, the active reading strategy gives readers a systematic way to work through any reading material.

Survey is similar to skimming. You look for clues to meaning by reading the titles, headings, introductions, summary, captions for graphics, and keywords. You can survey almost anything connected to the reading selection, including the copyright information, the date of the journal article, or the names and qualifications of the author(s). In this step, you decide what the general meaning is for the reading selection.

Question is your creation of questions to seek the main ideas, support, examples, and conclusions of the reading selection. Ask yourself these questions separately. Try to create valid questions about what you are about to read that have come into your mind as you engaged in the Survey step. Try turning the headings of the sections in the chapter into questions. Next, how does what you’re reading relate to you, your school, your community, and the world?

Read is when you actually read the passage. Try to find the answers to questions you developed in the previous step. Decide how much you are reading in chunks, either by paragraph for more complex readings or by section or even by an entire chapter. When you finish reading the selection, stop to make notes. Answer the questions by writing a note in the margin or other white space of the text.

You may also carefully underline or highlight text in addition to your notes. Use caution here that you don’t try to rush this step by haphazardly circling terms or the other extreme of underlining huge chunks of text. Don’t over-mark. You aren’t likely to remember what these cryptic marks mean later when you come back to use this active reading session to study. The text is the source of information—your marks and notes are just a way to organize and make sense of that information.

Recite means to speak out loud. By reciting, you are engaging other senses to remember the material—you read it (visual) and you said it (auditory). Stop reading momentarily in the step to answer your questions or clarify confusing sentences or paragraphs. You can recite a summary of what the text means to you. If you are not in a place where you can verbalize, such as a library or classroom, you can accomplish this step adequately by  saying  it in your head; however, to get the biggest bang for your buck, try to find a place where you can speak aloud. You may even want to try explaining the content to a friend.

Review is a recap. Go back over what you read and add more notes, ensuring you have captured the main points of the passage, identified the supporting evidence and examples, and understood the overall meaning. You may need to repeat some or all of the SQR3 steps during your review depending on the length and complexity of the material. Before you end your active reading session, write a short (no more than one page is optimal) summary of the text you read.

Reading Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary sources are original documents we study and from which we glean information; primary sources include letters, first editions of books, legal documents, and a variety of other texts. When scholars look at these documents to understand a period in history or a scientific challenge and then write about their findings, the scholar’s article is considered a secondary source. Readers have to keep several factors in mind when reading both primary and secondary sources.

Primary sources may contain dated material we now know is inaccurate. It may contain personal beliefs and biases the original writer didn’t intend to be openly published, and it may even present fanciful or creative ideas that do not support current knowledge. Readers can still gain great insight from primary sources, but readers need to understand the context from which the writer of the primary source wrote the text.

Likewise, secondary sources are inevitably another person’s perspective on the primary source, so a reader of secondary sources must also be aware of potential biases or preferences the secondary source writer inserts in the writing that may persuade an incautious reader to interpret the primary source in a particular manner.

For example, if you were to read a secondary source that is examining the U.S. Declaration of Independence (the primary source), you would have a much clearer idea of how the secondary source scholar presented the information from the primary source if you also read the Declaration for yourself instead of trusting the other writer’s interpretation. Most scholars are honest in writing secondary sources, but you as a reader of the source are trusting the writer to present a balanced perspective of the primary source. When possible, you should attempt to read a primary source in conjunction with the secondary source. The Internet helps immensely with this practice.

Researching Topic and Author

During your preview stage, sometimes called pre-reading, you can easily pick up on information from various sources that may help you understand the material you’re reading more fully or place it in context with other important works in the discipline. If your selection is a book, flip it over or turn to the back pages and look for an author’s biography or note from the author. See if the book itself contains any other information about the author or the subject matter.

The main things you need to recall from your reading in college are the topics covered and how the information fits into the discipline. You can find these parts throughout the textbook chapter in the form of headings in larger and bold font, summary lists, and important quotations pulled out of the narrative. Use these features as you read to help you determine what the most important ideas are.

Remember, many books use quotations about the book or author as testimonials in a marketing approach to sell more books, so these may not be the most reliable sources of unbiased opinions, but it’s a start. Sometimes you can find a list of other books the author has written near the front of a book. Do you recognize any of the other titles? Can you do an Internet search for the name of the book or author? Go beyond the search results that want you to buy the book and see if you can glean any other relevant information about the author or the reading selection. Beyond a standard Internet search, try the library article database. These are more relevant to academic disciplines and contain resources you typically will not find in a standard search engine. If you are unfamiliar with how to use the library database, ask a reference librarian on campus. They are often underused resources that can point you in the right direction.

Understanding Your Own Preset Ideas on a Topic

Consider this scenario: Laura really enjoys learning about environmental issues. She has read many books and watched numerous televised documentaries on this topic and actively seeks out additional information on the environment. While Laura’s interest can help her understand a new reading encounter about the environment, Laura also has to be aware that with this interest, she brings forward her preset ideas and biases about the topic. Sometimes these prejudices against other ideas relate to religion or nationality or even just tradition. Without evidence, thinking the way we always have is not a good enough reason; evidence can change, and at the very least it needs honest review and assessment to determine its validity. Ironically, we may not want to learn new ideas because that may mean we would have to give up old ideas we have already mastered, which can be a daunting prospect.

With every reading situation about the environment, Laura needs to remain open-minded about what she is about to read and pay careful attention if she begins to ignore certain parts of the text because of her preconceived notions. Learning new information can be very difficult if you balk at ideas that are different from what you’ve always thought. You may have to force yourself to listen to a different viewpoint multiple times to make sure you are not closing your mind to a viable solution your mindset does not currently allow.

Can you think of times you have struggled reading college content for a course? Which of these strategies might have helped you understand the content? Why do you think those strategies would work?

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Making the Most of Assigned Readings

Assigned readings are an integral part of most any college class.  But, it can be difficult to get students to do the assigned readings and use them in the course.

Faculty often give quizzes about the readings to encourage students to do the work before class.   But there are other methods that can help more closely integrate the readings with the content of your course and help students more directly see the relevancy of the readings.

Best Practices

There’s a wide range of literature on assigned readings among educators.   Generally, there’s agreement on a short list of best practices when using assigned readings in class.

Relevance Not only list the reading in the syllabus and class schedule, but also briefly explain why it’s being assigned and how it connects with the work the students will be doing in a particular week or lesson.   Reinforce the relevance by briefly introducing the reading in the class.

Expectations You should be clear about not only what readings are to be done, but also your instructional goals for the reading assignment, what students should do (or be prepared to do) with the readings, and deadlines.

Background and Structure Successful reading assignments scaffold the students with sufficient background material and structure, appropriate to where they are in their academic career and the course.   First year students or those new to a subject area will need more context and guidance to get the most out of readings.

In-Class Activities The best results from using reading assignments in a course can be found by using in-class activities based on the material.   Students will be more compelled to prepare for the class and take responsibility by doing the reading and can use the activities to examine the readings in more depth, exchanging ideas with their classmates.

Ideas for Reading Assignments

Journaling Have students write and turn in a brief journal of thoughts, questions and observations about the readings.   You can use the journal as a basis for class discussions and activities and to respond to individual student issues and problems.

Collaborative Reading Divide the text among students or small groups of students in the course for close analysis.   Individual students can report in class about their section of the readings or, for an in-class group activity, you can arrange the students in small groups where each person has read one part of the text.

Reading Rubrics If students are evaluating the quality and research of journal articles and other material, create a rubric they can use to rate the text.   Justifications for each part of the rubric can be brought out in forum posts, class discussions, or small group activities.

Top Ten Lists Have students create lists of the most important concepts in a reading, then, in small groups have them combine and rank their concept lists.

Cognitive Mapping In groups, have students collaborate on creating a cognitive map , based on key concepts and ideas they individually identified in the readings.

More Resources

For more information on reading assignments, investigate these articles and resources on the web.   You can also contact the CIT to talk with a consultant about great ideas for all types of course assignments.

Making the Review of Assigned Reading Meaningful (Faculty Focus)

Advance Reading Handout (Pedagogy Unbound)

Getting Students to Do Reading Assignments (Center for Faculty Excellence, West Point)

Getting Students to Do Their Assigned Readings (The Learning and Teaching Office, Ryerson) (PDF)

11 Strategies for Getting Students to Read What’s Assigned (Faculty Focus) (PDF)

Reading a Textbook for True Understanding (Resource for students at Cornell)

Staying Afloat: Some Scattered Suggestions on Reading in College (Resource for students by Prof. Timothy Burke, Swarthmore)

Northern Illinois University Effective Writing Practices Tutorial

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• Reading the Assignment

Assignment Considerations

Always read your written assignment carefully and consider what it asks you to do. Here are some questions that you may ask yourself before you begin to write your assignment:

• What kind of a written assignment is it ( an essay , a research paper , or a report )?
• Who is your primary audience for this assignment?
• What is the purpose of the assignment (to inform, to influence, or to record)?
• What mode of communication would best fit the assignment (a narrative, a description, a comparison, or an argument)?
• How long should the paper be?
• Does the assignment have any specific format requirements?
• What style of documentation is required?
• Are you required to do any research for this assignment?
• If research is required, how many sources should be used?

Rule to Remember

Always read your written assignment carefully and consider what it asks you to do.

If you cannot answer all of these questions by reading the assignment description, go back to your professor to clarify the requirements.

What kind of an assignment are you asked to write?

The most common written assignments given to students are essays, research papers, and reports.

An essay is defined as "an analytic or interpretative literary composition usually dealing with its subject from a limited or personal point of view" ( Merriam Webster OnLine ). Essays usually express the author's outlook on the subject.

A useful model that is often used in composition classes is a five-paragraph essay .

The Structure of a Classic Five-Paragraph Essay:

• Introduction (presents a topic and provides a thesis statement)
• Body paragraph 1 (presents evidence and supporting information)
• Body paragraph 2 (presents evidence and supporting information)
• Body paragraph 3 (presents evidence and supporting information)
• Conclusion (restatement of the thesis, call to action)

An essay is "an analytic or interpretive literary composition usually dealing with its subject from a limited or personal point of view."

NIU Writing Center Handout on a Classic Five-Paragraph Essay (PDF)

A Research Paper

A research paper is a term harder to define because expectations and guidelines may vary depending on your area of study. A research paper usually requires gathering research materials, interpreting, and documenting them in the paper. It is based the author's interpretation of the facts gathered from research and it, therefore, requires good critical thinking skills on the part of the author.

A research paper needs to be logically organized with a clearly stated purpose and thesis which have to be supported throughout the main body of the paper. Research information can be presented in the form of quotations, paraphrases, or summaries.

A research paper needs to be logically organized with a clearly stated purpose and thesis which are supported throughout the main body of the paper.

A research paper usually has the following structure

• Abstract (a brief summary of the paper)
• Introduction (introduces the importance of the subject)
• Materials and Methods (discusses how research was conducted)
• Results (describes outcomes of the research process)
• Discussion (discusses the relationship of the results)
• References (provides a list of resources used)
• Appendix (provides material used in research but not presented in the body of the paper)

( Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association , 10-29)

While essays and research papers are more typical in the humanities, much writing in the sciences and social sciences is in the form of a report. A report presents factual information, and its main purpose is to inform. It contains examples and provides an analysis of the subject.

The structure and organization of a report should reflect its main purpose and audience. There are several possible organization patterns. Below are two of the most common ones:

Report Structure One

• Abstract (summary of the report in one concise paragraph)
• Introduction (a brief outline of the problem)
• Literature review (summary of research in the field)
• Research methods
• Research results
• Discussion and conclusion (here the author may include an evaluation and form an argument)
• Endmatter (notes, references, appendices)

(Hult & Huckin, The New Century Handbook , 378)

A report presents factual information, and its main purpose is to inform. It contains examples and provides an analysis of the subject.

Report Structure Two

• Contents list
• Executive summary (brief outline of the subject matter)
• Introduction (presents background, scope, and authors)
• Body of the report (detailed account of the subject)
• Conclusions
• Recommendations (not all reports may have them)
• Appendices (may include research methods, names of members of the report team, case studies)
• Bibliography

(Sealy, Oxford Guide to Effective Writing and Speaking , 70)

• Punctuation
• Addressing the Audience
• Introduction
• Thesis Statement
• Supporting Paragraphs
• Transitions
• Revision Process

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4 Ways to Get Your Students to Do the Assigned Reading

Dr. Jenny Billings is a faculty member at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College.

Students do not always complete assigned readings. This is true for chapters, novels, articles, or even single poems. Being an English instructor, I take this personally. I laugh while writing this, but it’s true! When I craft my course, I am constantly considering which format will give my students everything they need to be successful. I tell my babies, “I have given you the world. Together, we can decide how best to navigate it.” I have always been the kind of instructor to select the assigned chapters first, then build the rest of the course around them. These chapters are presented in a certain order to help dictate the rest of the “world” I build for my students: the corresponding notes, what I lecture on, the videos I embed, the assignments they complete, and the discussion questions they consider. With the chapters bearing so much weight, what if my students opt out of reading? Here are four ways I get my students to read what I assign. Hopefully, they’ll help you, too.

1. Start Small: Change Your Approach

I used to get so frustrated when a student would ask me a question that was addressed in the reading I had just assigned. I’d often ask or write back, “Did you read Chapter X in your eTextbook?” The student would respond one of two ways: 1) “No (but I will)” or 2) “Yes, I read it (but don’t understand what it said).” The question I asked prompted these responses only; I wasn’t allowing for anything else.

I’ve changed the way I approach this. Instead of putting the sole responsibility back on the student—”Have you read the chapter?”—I create an opportunity for us to navigate the reading together. Instead, I’ll ask, “What section, page, or concept tripped you up?” From there, we narrow it down, discuss it together, and the student walks away with a better understanding. Even if it was only that portion, and even if they didn’t really read the chapter to begin with, they now grasp that concept or section. That’s still a win in my book. You know what else is a win? The fact that they are more likely to read in the future because I didn’t turn them away.

2. Less Assigned Reading is More. Seriously.

Our students are drowning in information daily. Social media, the news, their home life, their work life, their families, their kids … these things combined lead to information overload. Our students are coming to us for an education, sure, but they are also coming to us for change.

I’m not saying that you must remove important information from your class. I’m saying that you need to evaluate how much reading you’re assigning. You and I both know that there are concepts, pages, and even chapters that can be omitted and replaced with a video or live lecture. When I started teaching high school, I taught the same way I was taught. I assigned reading outside of class and then once back in class, I went over what students were supposed to read outside of class. See the redundancy? If I’m going to go over it anyway, why would the students need to read it beforehand? Rather than go over it, the in-class session should be an expansion of what they read. They should apply what they read to class, the assignment, etc. in a way that requires them to read to do well. For them to recall everything that they’ve read, especially on the spot, you need to assign less reading. Like Theresa MacPhail says, “My students are getting the information—but in the formats with which they are most comfortable.”

3. Assigned Reading Should Be Relevant

I’m guilty of assigning reading because I felt it was “easier” for students to get the information that way. If students aren’t reading, they aren’t getting the information. If the reading you assigned isn’t relevant to the assignment they’re focused on in that moment, you’ve lost them.

The reading can’t be relevant just to the course—or just to the final exam. Assign reading quizzes consistently. Use your LMS or digital platform dashboard to gauge reading and student engagement. Set the expectation that all students will participate in class discussions—and stick to it! The assigned reading must be understood and utilized immediately to establish relevancy, and thus, importance in the minds of students. Don’t believe me? I asked my babies how they defined relevant reading and reading they were more likely to complete. Here are some direct quotes:

“If I know that the chapter assigned will show me how to do the current assignment, I’m much more likely to read it. Well, skim it efficiently.”

“When you tell us the pages that will help us the most with our assignment, I always read and use those.”

“Relevant reading assignments are those that provide insight on how I can be successful on the essay you just assigned. Almost like they are telling me a secret that I would have missed otherwise.”

See what I mean? Students know what they need to read. They’ll also tell you, honestly, how to entice them to read. So, ask.

4. Don’t Assign Reading Just for Reading’s Sake

According to Linda B. Nilson , students “only spend about 37% of their reading time on college reading assignments, which they describe as ‘tedious’ and ‘time-consuming.’ In fact, they often skip the assigned readings unless their grades depend on it.” If you’re assigning reading as an assignment, ensure there’s a grade associated with it. The days of assigning reading so students “can apply concepts later” are gone. It’s not difficult to make sure that graded work is directly related to what students were supposed to read and assigned in a timely manner.

I would also encourage you to give your students assignments that serve as chapter maps. Give them in advance so students know what to focus on and what to read specifically. Then ask them to apply those concepts critically to the assignment. Students are more likely to read what you assign if you tell them: 1) exactly what to read, 2) where that information will be used (i.e., on what assignment), 3) how the reading applies to their current assignment or work, and 4) what they’re risking by not completing the reading. Students are grade-driven; success should be reading-driven.

We know there are plenty of barriers to reading . Students are not exactly pining to read academic text, especially if it’s extensive and dry. Getting students to read starts with selecting the right texts. I have worked at this for almost 10 years. In the current remote setting I find myself in, getting students to embrace all I provide them is even more important to their success. The worry that students are reading less has grown every year and will continue to do so. Instead of worrying that students are reading less, perhaps we can focus on assigning less and seeing more success.

Looking to do more reading yourself? Check out our brand new Anti-Racist Reading List, where we compiled recommendations from your peers!   

Related articles.

Victorian Literature: Writing in a Time of Globalization and Crisis

Instructor: Jarrett Moran

Second Major Assignment: Reading Time

How do people use narratives to orient themselves in space and time.

Main texts: Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847); Charles Dickens,  Bleak House  (1852); Charles Darwin,  Origin of the Species  (1859)

Why is London haunted by dinosaurs in Dickens? What kinds of connections do Brontë, Dickens, and Darwin use to hold together a sense of order and meaning in the world? Where have we come from and where are we going?

Choose two sources. At least one should be from the three main texts listed above, Brontë’s Jane Eyre , Dickens’  Bleak House , or Darwin’s Origin of the Species . The second source can be either another main text from the class, or it can be an artifact of your own choosing. This second artifact could be a novel, image, movie, video, advertisement, or song—just about anything. I’ll provide feedback on your ideas as we work on the assignment.

Identify a narrative about time embedded in a specific passage (or, depending on medium, specific details) in each text or artifact. We will talk about numerous examples in class. Does the passage or artifact draw on an idea of progress, of evolution or devolution, of crisis? Explain the narrative that you have identified using evidence and quotations from the passage that you have chosen.

Compare the narratives that you have identified in each text. What are similarities or differences in how these texts situate themselves in time and space? What do the authors do, rhetorically, with these narratives in order to get you to see the world in a particular way? How do your own narratives relate to the ones in these texts?

Skills That I Am Asking You to Practice

• Identifying temporal, historical, and scientific narratives.
• Researching the entwined histories of literary and scientific or historical genres of writing.
• Developing a thesis that connects examples from two different texts.
• Scholarly citation practices.

Requirements

To receive credit for the assignment, you should:

• Identify and compare temporal narratives in two texts
• Your thesis must mention both sources and define a relationship between them. Putting the two texts into conversation should illuminate features of both that would not have been apparent if you were looking at either in isolation.
• Reflect on how the narratives in these texts are similar to or different from your own narratives about time, or about the world.
• Use MLA citation conventions. You are not required to use secondary sources for this assignment.
• Do the above in around 1,000 words (excluding works cited).

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A Mississippi teacher assigned a controversial chapter in a book. Now, she's out of a job

When S herman Alexie’s novel “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” was released in 2007, it received critical acclaim and won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. But over the years, the book ― which is told from the perspective of a 14-year-old Native American boy ― has been the subject of controversy, in part for its depictions of violence, poverty, and sexuality.

The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom named it the most banned and challenged book from 2010 to 2019. And recently, passionate complaints about Alexie's work reached the Mid-South.

An eighth-grade teacher is no longer in her position at DeSoto County Schools after parents expressed outrage that she assigned her students at Lake Cormorant Middle School a passage focused on masturbation. It was not immediately clear if the teacher who assigned the passage resigned or was fired and DeSoto County Schools did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The district has not publicly identified the teacher.

The parent who has most vocally complained is Tambre Wells, whose daughter was in the class assigned the book section. In late August, she posted a picture of it on Facebook, and wrote, “OMG OMG this is SENT HOME READING MATERIAL for my 8th grade girl???????!!!!! I’ll be at the school in the morning.”

In an update on the same post, she wrote that she had gone to the school and met with the principal, Lisa Steiner, who allegedly told her “No matter the excuse, it is inexcusable in our school.”

“This appears to have been a rogue teacher. They are only allowed to copy and print certain parts of the book, but this teacher did more, even though the clean edited version was provided to her by a colleague,” Wells said in the update. “The teacher has been dismissed and in disgrace. The principal was humble, and I could tell this was weighing on her very much.”

Her post quickly caught fire, receiving more than 1,000 comments and shares. The majority of other commenters also expressed outrage at the passage being assigned to students at the school.

School board reaction

Wells read the passage that had been assigned to her daughter at the DeSoto County Board of Education meeting on Sept. 6 ― a portion of the excerpt reads: "Yep, that’s right, I admit that I masturbate...I’m proud of it. I’m good at it." ― and questioned the presence of the book in the classroom or school library. She also asked the board for an audit of the reading curriculum and library books with potentially inappropriate content.  

“This book has bullying, teen drinking, shoplifting, racism, and sexual content,” she said at the public meeting. “As a parent with conservative values, I'm not alone in requesting an audit of the curriculum and library schoolbooks… It's important for us to provide a safe and respectful learning environment to our children that aligns with our morals and values that we hold dear.”

DeSoto County Schools Superintendent Cory Uselton expressed frustration that the passage had been assigned and noted actions being taken as the district looks ahead.

“I contacted the board last week after that came to our attention,” he said at the meeting. “I would say within a matter of almost minutes, but hours, it was addressed from the superintendent-board level. However, also, what you're talking about as far as library books, I've met with each of our directors who are over the primary schools or immediate schools, middle schools and high schools. They're going to be meeting with principals individually to discuss this concern.”

Added Charles Barton, the board chairperson, on the assignment:

“We met within a couple of hours,” he said. “And 5-0, we all agreed, that's not going to be put up with, that's not going to be tolerated – not for one minute.”

'I trust the teachers'

However, not all DeSoto County parents are furious about the use of the passage from Alexie’s book.

Jennie Wade is a real estate appraiser who grew up in Memphis and has lived in Olive Branch for almost 25 years. She has two children in their twenties who graduated from DeSoto County Schools and a nine-year-old who currently attends a school in the district.

She told The Commercial Appeal that if the teacher had been explicitly told not to assign the passage and did it anyway, she “may have deserved some punishment,” giving an example of a suspension. But Wade also said she didn’t “think it was fair for the teacher to be fired so quickly.”

Wade also said she places her trust in teachers, at a time when she believes their job has become particularly challenging.

Memphis education news: Interim MSCS Superintendent Toni Williams gets evaluation, talks school HVAC issues

"I trust the teachers and I trust the administrators to teach my child," she said. "If I didn't, I wouldn't have them in public school. I would homeschool my son, or I would find a charter school or private school."

And as she read Facebook comments from people infuriated over the reading assignment, she decided to learn more about Alexie’s novel, beyond just the passage focused on masturbation. She liked what she found: the story of a Native American teenager and talented cartoonist, who grows up on the Spokane Indian Reservation and decides to attend an all-white farm town high school.

“When you read about another kid in another type of community in a whole different region of the country that might be going through the same thing you are, it helps,” Wade said. “I think it's just it's good for our kids to be educated with a lot of different perspectives, and not just what we feel comfortable with.”

John Klyce covers education and children's issues for The Commercial Appeal. You can reach him at [email protected]

Your Guide to Uploading Files to ChatGPT (and Why You Would Want To)

You can pretty easily upload a document to ChatGPT. Here's how that could come in handy, and how to do it.

You can ask ChatGPT to analyze your files.

ChatGPT  can provide you with brief summaries of complex topics, brainstorm book ideas with you and even write code in different programming languages. But one thing the AI chatbot, developed by  OpenAI , couldn't do for a long time was access and read uploaded files.

If you wanted ChatGPT to analyze information from something like a PDF or an Excel spreadsheet, you were out of luck. You'd have to manually type the information from the document into the chat thread. And then you could enter your prompt.

But that's no longer the case. 

With ChatGPT-4, the latest version of ChatGPT, you can now upload any file from your device into the chatbot. Read on to understand who can upload files, why you'd want to and how to upload files. Here's everything you need to know.

The AI chatbot roster -- as with other generative AI tools -- is expansive and growing, with Google Gemini, Microsoft CoPilot, Claude.ai, Perplexity, Dall-E, Midjourney and others on the list. They're collectively poised to transform how you work, how you get information and how companies do business. But it all started with ChatGPT.

Who exactly can upload files to ChatGPT?

Right now, to upload a file to ChatGPT, you need to pay for ChatGPT Plus . A subscription to ChatGPT Plus runs $20 a month, and this grants you access to ChatGPT-4 and access to the latest features, including uploading files. 

If you want to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus, open the ChatGPT app on your phone and git the Get Plus sign at the top of any new prompt page. You can also access the side panel on the left side, tap the three-dot menu at the bottom of the page and go into  Subscription or hit Upgrade to ChatGPT Plus .

The process of upgrading to ChatGPT Plus is similar on your computer and tablet.

Why would you even want to upload files to ChatGPT anyway?

ChatGPT-4 can analyze any file you upload, whether it's a PowerPoint presentation, an Excel spreadsheet, a research paper or a photo. 

If you upload a spreadsheet with financial data, for example, you can ask ChatGPT to create a visual graph of the numbers. If you upload a PowerPoint presentation you did for school, you can ask ChatGPT to give you feedback on the content, and even proofread and correct any mistakes. With a complicated research paper, you can ask ChatGPT to give you a simple summary to read through, along with a bullet list for headlines and key points.

And with a photo, you can ask ChatGPT to explain what's in the image, or give you instructions on how to build something you've photographed. The options as to what you can ask ChatGPT for are limitless. It's up to you to figure out exactly what you want ChatGPT to do with your files.

Before you upload a file to ChatGPT...

Think about your privacy. Any file you upload to ChatGPT is retained indefinitely within the service, and those files may also be used by OpenAI to train its models, so it's best to refrain from uploading files with any important personal information, like your Social Security number, address,  finance documents or phone numbers.

And someone else could potentially gain access to your personal information , so only upload files with information you wouldn't mind other people getting access to.

It's not just privacy. Consider accuracy too. ChatGPT  can give wrong answers , and its dataset does not have  up-to-date information , so you'll want to double-check that the chatbot is accurately proofreading, summarizing or explaining as you'd expect. 

How to upload files to ChatGPT

Now for the easy part: Uploading files to ChatGPT. As long as you're paying for the premium subscription, launch ChatGPT, create a new chat and hit the plus sign to the left of the text field to view your uploading options. Starting from the far left, you can:

• Give ChatGPT access to your camera and take a photo from within the app
• Upload a photo from your camera roll
• Upload a file from the Files app

Once you upload a file (or files), enter your prompt underneath and hit send. ChatGPT will the analyze your file and answer your question.

You can only upload files with a limit of 512MB per file and photos with a limit of 20MB per image. Note : The files in the middle screenshot above have been blurred for privacy reasons.

In the examples below, (left) I uploaded a call sheet for a short film I worked on and asked ChatGPT to provide a list of everyone on set that day and (right) I uploaded four images of a pub that someone had built in their home and asked ChatGPT how I could do the same.

You can ask ChatGPT to summarize, analyze, extract and more.

You can continue asking questions, in regard to the file(s) you uploaded, within the ChatGPT thread.

Editors' note: CNET is using an AI engine to help create some stories. For more, see  this post .

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The Dogs Helping the Covenant Children Find Their Way Back

To heal after a mass shooting, the Covenant School families have turned to therapy, faith, one another — and a lot of dogs.

Monroe Joyce, 10, runs with one of two dachshunds taken in by her family. She is one of several children who now have a dog after surviving the Covenant School shooting. Credit...

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By Emily Cochrane

Photographs by Erin Schaff

Emily Cochrane and Erin Schaff spoke with more than a dozen Covenant School parents, students, staff and their dogs.

• Published March 24, 2024 Updated March 28, 2024

Two of April Manning’s children, Mac and Lilah, had just survived the mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville. They needed stability and time to grieve.

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So she did everything she could to keep the family dog, Owen, their sweet but ailing 15-year-old golden retriever, with them for as long as possible. She pushed back his final trip to the vet, keeping him comfortable as he slowly moved around the house.

Getting another dog was the furthest thing from her mind. But a few weeks after the shooting, her children sat her down for an important presentation.

Prepared with a script and a PowerPoint — “Why We Should Get (Another) Dog” — they rattled through research showing the mental health benefits of having one. It could limit their chances of developing PTSD and help them feel safe. Playing together would get them outside and boost their happiness.

Ms. Manning and her husband considered. Maybe a second dog was possible.

First came Chip, a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. Then, after Owen succumbed to old age, came Birdie, a miniature poodle and Bernese Mountain dog mix. And in taking them in, the Mannings were far from alone.

In the year since Tennessee’s worst school shooting, in which three third-graders and three staff members were killed by a former student, more than 40 dogs have been taken in by families at Covenant, a small Christian school of about 120 families.

“I really only expected them to help in a cuddly kind of way, like just to snuggle the kids when they’re upset ,” Ms. Manning said. “But I wasn’t really expecting all the other benefits from them.”

To spend time with the Covenant families is to understand how they have relied on one another, traditional psychological treatments and mental health counseling, and their Christian faith to hold them together.

But it is also to see how often what they needed — a distraction, a protector, a friend who could listen, something untouched by darkness — came from a dog.

An Immediate Response

Dogs greeted the surviving children at Sandy Hook Elementary School as they returned to a refurbished middle school in 2013. A dozen golden retrievers were on hand in Orlando to provide comfort after the deadly attack at a L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in 2016. The therapy dogs who tended to the surviving students in Parkland, Fla., made the school yearbook .

“Over this period of sort of, 35,000 years, dogs have become incredibly adept at socializing with humans, so they’re sensitive to our emotional state,” said Dr. Nancy Gee, who oversees the Center for Human-Animal Interaction at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Even brief, minute-long interactions with dogs and other animals can reduce cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, research by Dr. Gee and others has shown, providing a possible lifeline for veterans struggling with PTSD and others recovering from trauma.

And on the day of the Covenant shooting, dogs were immediately there to help. Covey, the headmaster’s dog, was at a nearby firehouse, where dozens of staff members and students were evacuated. Squid, a retriever mix, was at the children’s hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, helping to comfort the staff if needed.

When the students who survived were put on a school bus to be reunited with their anguished parents, Sgt. Bo, a police dog, was sitting at their side.

Officer Faye Okert, the dog’s handler with the Metro Nashville Police, handed out a baseball card of dog facts to distract and comfort the children.

“The focus was on him,” said Officer Okert. “You had smiles after what they had been through.”

After families reunited, counselors offered clear advice: To help your child, get a dog. Or borrow a neighbor’s.

That led several parents to connect with Comfort Connections, a nonprofit comfort dog organization. Jeanene Hupy, the group’s founder, had seen firsthand how therapy dogs had helped the Sandy Hook students and started her own organization once she moved to Nashville.

The group, which oversees a menagerie of golden retrievers, a gentle pit bull and a massive English mastiff, began its work by visiting individual homes in the days after the shooting. Then, when students returned to class weeks later, the dogs were once again there.

They were something to look forward to, in the moments when walking through the school doors felt overwhelming. And when there were painful reminders — a water bottle clattering to the floor, an unsettling history lesson on war or the absence of a friend — a child could slip away and cuddle a dog.

As Ms. Hupy put it, something special happens “when you bring in something that loves you more than it loves itself, which is these guys.”

A Reassuring Presence

First it was a joke, then a reality: Everyone was getting a dog.

Fueled by community donations and her own money, Ms. Hupy began connecting several parents and puppies. Even for families who could easily afford a new dog, Ms. Hupy and her trainers dramatically eased the logistical hurdles by finding and training puppies that seemed perfect fits to each family.

The Anderson girls shrieked and cried with joy when they learned they were getting a dog, and have now taught Leo how to flaunt sunglasses and do tricks. The Hobbs children constantly scoop up Lady Diana Spencer, often fashionably dressed in a string of pearls or sweaters.

The dogs are also there in the harder moments, too, like when an ambulance or police car drives by blaring its siren or when the memorial ribbons in their neighborhood remind them of what was lost.

“Sometimes it’s just nice to have a giant soft pillow that doesn’t need to talk to you and just cuddle it,” said Evangeline Anderson, now 11.

And if the dogs chew on a shoe or make a mess on a rug, Ms. Manning said, it is a lesson in how to deal with conflicting emotions.

“We still love them and we’re so glad we have them — both things can be true,” she said. “Just like we can be really nervous about going back to school and still also be excited to do it.”

And maybe, the parents realized, it was not just for the children.

Rachel and Ben Gatlin were driving back from vacation on the day of the shooting. That has meant grappling with the heaviness of survival and knowing that Mr. Gatlin, a history teacher who carried a pistol on his ankle for personal protection, could have run toward the shooter that day.

And while their new dog, Buddy, has adapted to the bossiness of their young children and has developed a penchant for sock consumption, he has also kept the adults’ thoughts focused in the moment. Tending to his needs has served as a reminder of their own.

“When you see it working, you’re in total comfort,” Ms. Gatlin said.

Even the school’s chaplain, Matthew Sullivan, found that the stories of new puppies being shared each day in chapel were “wearing me down in a good way.”

“I kind of wanted to enter into the experience of all these families firsthand,” he said.

Now Hank, a slightly anxious, floppy-eared Scooby-Doo doppelgänger, has been adopted into his home, which had been a little empty without his grown children.

The Alternatives

Not everyone got a dog.

For the McLeans, the solution was two rabbits.

“It’s an incredible distraction to their reality,” Abby McLean said of her children, cupping her hands to mimic cradling a rabbit on her shoulder. “I find myself occasionally doing it as well.”

Another family added Ginny, a tortoise with a possible seven-decade life span, to the mix of animals already in their house.

“For having lost people early in life — there was something that equated to me in that, that there was a longevity to it, to a tortoise,” said Phil Shay, who picked out the tortoise with his 12-year-old daughter, Ever.

Still, the dogs far outnumber the other pets. And every day they can make a little difference.

The first night that George, Jude and Amos Bolton had tried to sleep alone without their parents after the shooting, the slightest grumble from the ice machine or the dryer had been too much. Their mother, Rachel, who had maintained that she liked dogs, just not in her house, soon agreed to take in Hudson, a miniature Goldendoodle puppy with doe-like eyes and wild curls.

“We didn’t realize the dogs could create comfort for people,” Jude, now 10, said, his hands ruffling Hudson’s ears. And when Hudson came home, he added, “he’s just been comforting us ever since.”

It is now easier to sleep through the night, safe with the knowledge that Hudson is there.

“All my friends joke, they’re like, ‘I can’t believe you’re a dog person now,’” Ms. Bolton said. But this dog, she added, “has healed this family.”

Read by Emily Cochrane

Audio produced by Patricia Sulbarán .

Emily Cochrane is a national reporter for The Times covering the American South, based in Nashville. More about Emily Cochrane

Erin Schaff is a photojournalist for The Times, covering stories across the country. More about Erin Schaff

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40 facts about elektrostal.

Written by Lanette Mayes

Modified & Updated: 02 Mar 2024

Reviewed by Jessica Corbett

Elektrostal is a vibrant city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia. With a rich history, stunning architecture, and a thriving community, Elektrostal is a city that has much to offer. Whether you are a history buff, nature enthusiast, or simply curious about different cultures, Elektrostal is sure to captivate you.

This article will provide you with 40 fascinating facts about Elektrostal, giving you a better understanding of why this city is worth exploring. From its origins as an industrial hub to its modern-day charm, we will delve into the various aspects that make Elektrostal a unique and must-visit destination.

So, join us as we uncover the hidden treasures of Elektrostal and discover what makes this city a true gem in the heart of Russia.

Key Takeaways:

• Elektrostal, known as the “Motor City of Russia,” is a vibrant and growing city with a rich industrial history, offering diverse cultural experiences and a strong commitment to environmental sustainability.
• With its convenient location near Moscow, Elektrostal provides a picturesque landscape, vibrant nightlife, and a range of recreational activities, making it an ideal destination for residents and visitors alike.

Known as the “Motor City of Russia.”

Elektrostal, a city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia, earned the nickname “Motor City” due to its significant involvement in the automotive industry.

Home to the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Elektrostal is renowned for its metallurgical plant, which has been producing high-quality steel and alloys since its establishment in 1916.

Boasts a rich industrial heritage.

Elektrostal has a long history of industrial development, contributing to the growth and progress of the region.

Founded in 1916.

The city of Elektrostal was founded in 1916 as a result of the construction of the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Located approximately 50 kilometers east of Moscow.

Elektrostal is situated in close proximity to the Russian capital, making it easily accessible for both residents and visitors.

Known for its vibrant cultural scene.

Elektrostal is home to several cultural institutions, including museums, theaters, and art galleries that showcase the city’s rich artistic heritage.

A popular destination for nature lovers.

Surrounded by picturesque landscapes and forests, Elektrostal offers ample opportunities for outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and birdwatching.

Hosts the annual Elektrostal City Day celebrations.

Every year, Elektrostal organizes festive events and activities to celebrate its founding, bringing together residents and visitors in a spirit of unity and joy.

Has a population of approximately 160,000 people.

Elektrostal is home to a diverse and vibrant community of around 160,000 residents, contributing to its dynamic atmosphere.

Boasts excellent education facilities.

The city is known for its well-established educational institutions, providing quality education to students of all ages.

A center for scientific research and innovation.

Elektrostal serves as an important hub for scientific research, particularly in the fields of metallurgy, materials science, and engineering.

Surrounded by picturesque lakes.

The city is blessed with numerous beautiful lakes, offering scenic views and recreational opportunities for locals and visitors alike.

Well-connected transportation system.

Elektrostal benefits from an efficient transportation network, including highways, railways, and public transportation options, ensuring convenient travel within and beyond the city.

Famous for its traditional Russian cuisine.

Food enthusiasts can indulge in authentic Russian dishes at numerous restaurants and cafes scattered throughout Elektrostal.

Home to notable architectural landmarks.

Elektrostal boasts impressive architecture, including the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Elektrostal Palace of Culture.

Offers a wide range of recreational facilities.

Residents and visitors can enjoy various recreational activities, such as sports complexes, swimming pools, and fitness centers, enhancing the overall quality of life.

Provides a high standard of healthcare.

Elektrostal is equipped with modern medical facilities, ensuring residents have access to quality healthcare services.

Home to the Elektrostal History Museum.

The Elektrostal History Museum showcases the city’s fascinating past through exhibitions and displays.

A hub for sports enthusiasts.

Elektrostal is passionate about sports, with numerous stadiums, arenas, and sports clubs offering opportunities for athletes and spectators.

Celebrates diverse cultural festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal hosts a variety of cultural festivals, celebrating different ethnicities, traditions, and art forms.

Electric power played a significant role in its early development.

Elektrostal owes its name and initial growth to the establishment of electric power stations and the utilization of electricity in the industrial sector.

Boasts a thriving economy.

The city’s strong industrial base, coupled with its strategic location near Moscow, has contributed to Elektrostal’s prosperous economic status.

Houses the Elektrostal Drama Theater.

The Elektrostal Drama Theater is a cultural centerpiece, attracting theater enthusiasts from far and wide.

Popular destination for winter sports.

Elektrostal’s proximity to ski resorts and winter sport facilities makes it a favorite destination for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter activities.

Promotes environmental sustainability.

Elektrostal prioritizes environmental protection and sustainability, implementing initiatives to reduce pollution and preserve natural resources.

Home to renowned educational institutions.

Elektrostal is known for its prestigious schools and universities, offering a wide range of academic programs to students.

Committed to cultural preservation.

The city values its cultural heritage and takes active steps to preserve and promote traditional customs, crafts, and arts.

Hosts an annual International Film Festival.

The Elektrostal International Film Festival attracts filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts from around the world, showcasing a diverse range of films.

Encourages entrepreneurship and innovation.

Elektrostal supports aspiring entrepreneurs and fosters a culture of innovation, providing opportunities for startups and business development.

Offers a range of housing options.

Elektrostal provides diverse housing options, including apartments, houses, and residential complexes, catering to different lifestyles and budgets.

Home to notable sports teams.

Elektrostal is proud of its sports legacy, with several successful sports teams competing at regional and national levels.

Boasts a vibrant nightlife scene.

Residents and visitors can enjoy a lively nightlife in Elektrostal, with numerous bars, clubs, and entertainment venues.

Promotes cultural exchange and international relations.

Elektrostal actively engages in international partnerships, cultural exchanges, and diplomatic collaborations to foster global connections.

Surrounded by beautiful nature reserves.

Nearby nature reserves, such as the Barybino Forest and Luchinskoye Lake, offer opportunities for nature enthusiasts to explore and appreciate the region’s biodiversity.

Commemorates historical events.

The city pays tribute to significant historical events through memorials, monuments, and exhibitions, ensuring the preservation of collective memory.

Promotes sports and youth development.

Elektrostal invests in sports infrastructure and programs to encourage youth participation, health, and physical fitness.

Hosts annual cultural and artistic festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal celebrates its cultural diversity through festivals dedicated to music, dance, art, and theater.

Provides a picturesque landscape for photography enthusiasts.

The city’s scenic beauty, architectural landmarks, and natural surroundings make it a paradise for photographers.

Connects to Moscow via a direct train line.

The convenient train connection between Elektrostal and Moscow makes commuting between the two cities effortless.

A city with a bright future.

Elektrostal continues to grow and develop, aiming to become a model city in terms of infrastructure, sustainability, and quality of life for its residents.

In conclusion, Elektrostal is a fascinating city with a rich history and a vibrant present. From its origins as a center of steel production to its modern-day status as a hub for education and industry, Elektrostal has plenty to offer both residents and visitors. With its beautiful parks, cultural attractions, and proximity to Moscow, there is no shortage of things to see and do in this dynamic city. Whether you’re interested in exploring its historical landmarks, enjoying outdoor activities, or immersing yourself in the local culture, Elektrostal has something for everyone. So, next time you find yourself in the Moscow region, don’t miss the opportunity to discover the hidden gems of Elektrostal.

Q: What is the population of Elektrostal?

A: As of the latest data, the population of Elektrostal is approximately XXXX.

Q: How far is Elektrostal from Moscow?

A: Elektrostal is located approximately XX kilometers away from Moscow.

Q: Are there any famous landmarks in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to several notable landmarks, including XXXX and XXXX.

Q: What industries are prominent in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal is known for its steel production industry and is also a center for engineering and manufacturing.

Q: Are there any universities or educational institutions in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to XXXX University and several other educational institutions.

Q: What are some popular outdoor activities in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal offers several outdoor activities, such as hiking, cycling, and picnicking in its beautiful parks.

Q: Is Elektrostal well-connected in terms of transportation?

A: Yes, Elektrostal has good transportation links, including trains and buses, making it easily accessible from nearby cities.

Q: Are there any annual events or festivals in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal hosts various events and festivals throughout the year, including XXXX and XXXX.

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Our commitment to delivering trustworthy and engaging content is at the heart of what we do. Each fact on our site is contributed by real users like you, bringing a wealth of diverse insights and information. To ensure the highest standards of accuracy and reliability, our dedicated editors meticulously review each submission. This process guarantees that the facts we share are not only fascinating but also credible. Trust in our commitment to quality and authenticity as you explore and learn with us.

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J.D. Martinez to join minor league affiliate as soon as Friday, Sunday Mets debut unlikely

Mets manager Carlos Mendoza offered an update on J.D. Martinez prior to Thursday’s doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers , and while the slugger continues to ramp up, a minor league assignment sounds imminent.

This Sunday is technically the first day that the 36-year-old can join the Mets, but Mendoza said the following series against the Atlanta Braves seems much more likely.

“We’re getting close. We’ve got to make a decision, because he’s getting close to joining one of our affiliates in the minor leagues, whether that’s Syracuse, Binghamton, or Port St. Lucie, and that could come as soon as tomorrow, So, we’ve still got to talk to him and go from there,” Mendoza said.

“I don’t anticipate Sunday, which is his first day that he is able to come up, to be that day. Hopefully it’s in Atlanta, but still fluid. The biggest thing is we’ve got to get him to join one of our affiliates, and that could happen as soon as tomorrow.”

Martinez, signed by the Mets on March 23, has been hitting at the club’s facility in Port St. Lucie.

“He’s getting a lot of at-bats, he’s feeling good, and now we’ve got to take it to the next step.”

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2024 March Madness TV schedule: How to watch the NCAA Tournament, announcers, Final Four times, live stream

The complete television and streaming schedule for how to watch march madness 2024.

All that's left is the Final Four of the 2024 NCAA Tournament as we inch closer to crowning a national champion in men's college basketball. After starting with 68 teams just 13 days ago on Selection Sunday, only four remain with three games left until a champion is determined.

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Veteran Ian Eagle steps in as the lead play-by-play announcer for the Final Four, replacing the legendary Jim Nantz, who stepped away in 2023. Eagle will lead mainstays Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and reporter Tracy Wolfson on the top announcing team.

For the entire 2024 NCAA Tournament, CBS and TBS are leading the way primarily televising 21 games apiece, while truTV and TNT carried 13 and 12, respectively. The Final Four will simulcast across TBS and TNT. You can also watch the final three games of the NCAA Tournament on the  March Madness Live app  and on Max's B/R Sports Add-On.

From the Selection Show all the way until the playing of "One Shining Moment" after a champion is crowned, CBS Sports and TNT Sports will be bringing you the magic.

Let's take a look at the 2024 March Madness announcing teams as well as the remaining schedule for the 2024 NCAA Tournament.

2024 March Madness announcing teams

Play-by-Play | Analyst(s) || Reporter * Regional Weekend announce teams

• Ian Eagle | Bill Raftery, Grant Hill || Tracy Wolfson*
• Brian Anderson | Jim Jackson || Allie LaForce*
• Kevin Harlan | Dan Bonner, Stan Van Gundy || Andy Katz*
• Andrew Catalon | Steve Lappas || Evan Washburn*
• Lisa Byington | Steve Smith, Robbie Hummel || Lauren Shehadi
• Spero Dedes | Jim Spanarkel || Jon Rothstein
• Tom McCarthy | Deb Antonelli, Avery Johnson || AJ Ross
• Brad Nessler | Brendan Haywood || Dana Jacobson

2024 NCAA Tournament schedule, dates

Saturday, April 6 State Farm Stadium -- Glendale, Arizona

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Monday, April 8 -- 9:20 p.m. (TBS / TNT) State Farm Stadium -- Glendale, Arizona

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Edey, Clingan show big men are back at Final Four

Dennis dodd • 6 min read.

Buzz surrounds NC State's Burns at Final Four

Kyle boone • 4 min read.

Seton Hall rallies late to Indiana State for NIT title

Cameron salerno • 1 min read, saint louis expected to hire indiana state's schertz, matt norlander • 1 min read.

Report: LSU's Hailey Van Lith entering transfer portal

Isabel gonzalez • 1 min read.

Tracking Bronny James' NBA Draft decision

Cameron salerno • 7 min read, share video.

2024 NCAA Tournament: How to watch live, TV tip times

Edey shows big men are back at Final Four

NC State's Burns has buzz at Final Four

CBS Sports All-America teams

How Hurley started Oats' Final Four path

Why NCAA is pushing to ban prop bets

Seton Hall rallies late to top Indiana State for NIT title

USC poaches Arkansas' Musselman as next coach

Plane issues delay UConn's arrival to Final Four