Sofa to 5k: Active Reading
Purpose: This exercise demonstrates the relationship between active-reading and efficient-reading. Students should learn that attentive reading habits can increase their retention and comprehension. It is well-suited for the beginning of the semester, or in conjunction with a research-based assignment.
Description: This exercise prompts students to reconsider quick and non-interactive reading by comparing the processes. It should demonstrate that retaining information is more difficult and time-consuming from a passively read passage.
Suggested Time: 40 minutes
Procedure:
Ask students to read an excerpt of your choice projected on the board.
Remove the projection and ask them to write short answers to a series of questions referencing specific content, as in phrasing or numerical details.
Discuss their answers, and draw extra attention to their (in)ability to quote exactly from memory.
Project the excerpt again and ask them to double-check their answers.
...Did it require them to essentially read the entire passage again?...
Provide a second excerpt on a printed hand-out and ask them to read the material with a pencil in hand. Encourage them to mark the passages they think are important, especially the author’s thesis or relevant / convincing facts. Ask them to anticipate as they are reading which details you may have chosen for questions.
Project a new set of questions for the second excerpt, and ask them to write their short answers on the same sheet of paper as the first excerpt.
Discuss their answers. How did engaging with the text affect their ability to find the specific answers? How well did they understand the second text? Did they need to completely re-read to find the answers?
Start a discussion about which process seemed "better" to them, or more useful for writing with research.
Be sure to question which factors might prohibit them from physically writing in their books (they want to sell them back?), and address possible solutions (post-its, digital PDF annotations through Adobe, or keeping notes in a Word Doc).