Faculty Tutorials - Colorado College

Faculty Inspiration: Guided Tours and Focused Readers

How can I make the texts I assign my students more accessible and valuable? How can I help them read efficiently and effectively while increasing their recall and engagement?

Every discipline, and every text, requires a unique strategy, but one simple step—that seems obvious to those of us who have been reading for our professional careers—can orient your students to a text that, to them, is unfamiliar: What am I reading? Why am I reading it? How will I use the reading? What are the features of the text? What should I look for as I read?

Take a few minutes in class to formally pre-view their texts.

You can think of reading like SCUBA diving, and you are the guide while your class (your specific academic discipline) and the texts you use are the specific ecosystem you’re visiting.

Of course, your students have heard about the ocean, know about certain fish and coral formations, and may even be aware of dangers! But how much more will they enjoy, remember, and be eager to return if, before you get off the boat, you spend five minutes previewing 1) where you’ll be diving, 2) what they might see and what they should look for, 3) specific qualities of the ecosystem, and 4) what you’ll talk about when they return.

For example, today we are drift diving at Palancar Reef in Cozumel, Mexico. We will encounter multiple forms of coral, sea turtles, numerous fish, and, if we’re lucky, a sand shark or two—keep your eyes out for the eels! To handle the strong current of a drift dive, conserve energy and oxygen, keep your arms and legs tight, don’t fight the current, stay balanced, and keep your shoulders square to the reef. Remember, tonight at the Barracuda Bar, I’ll give anyone who recruits a new diver 20% off the next dive—so think about what stories you’ll tell!

Or, for example, tomorrow we start our section on Huckleberry Finn—I hope you all have the Norton Critical edition because there are some fine essays in the back, especially the pieces by T.S. Eliot and Harold Bloom. The language in the text is often controversial, so be attentive to how the characters speak and what they say, and you should pay attention, as well, to images of death in the first fifty pages. In the back of the text, you’ll find editorial notes, so if you encounter a passage that doesn’t make sense, try the notes. Clemens’ is a clever writer, so notice his chapter headings and other introductory material in the table of contents. The Introduction is excellent; please read the first five pages—and more if you like. Finally, remember you have a reading response due tomorrow, so as you read, find a passage you think is interesting or controversial and explore that passage in your writing.

Here are some other elements, depending on your discipline, you may want to preview for your students:

The title and its relevance.
The authors and their biographies.
The copyright page and publishing information.
Acknowledgments.
Blurbs.
Preface.
Translator’s note.
Author’s note. Author’s biography.
Editor’s note.
Dedications or Thanks.
Table of Contents.
Headings, Subheadings, Bold Lettering
Chapter summaries or previews.
(allusion—quotation).
Charts, Graphs, Pictures, other Visuals.
Appendix, Appendices.
Editor’s textual notes.
Collected Critical Matter, Essays, Responses.
Glossary.
Index.
Bibliographic Information—Additional Resources.
Website hyperlink or Additional Support Mechanisms.
Any Special Features

WANT TO TALK MORE?

As a faculty member, you visibly engage with students in the classroom, with colleagues in meetings, through the pages of academic journals, at conferences and more. While much of academic life is about this public sharing of ideas and expertise, reading is often viewed more as a solitary practice conducted in private.

An individualized meeting with the Colket Fellow in Reading and Rhetoric offers faculty an opportunity to break reading into the open, to develop ways to integrate critical reading skills into course assignments, examine common difficulties students encounter with reading at CC, discuss cross-disciplinary reading challenges, improve speed and comprehension, or approach new or perplexing texts collaboratively.

Contact this year’s Colket Fellow, Kyle Torke, to set up an appointment or discuss any questions you may have about reading at Colorado College. Email or phone, at kyle.torke@coloradocollege.edu or (719) 227-8291.

Please feel free to contact Kyle as well if you are interested in scheduling an in-class visit focusing on active reading strategies or other reading topics, attending a reading workshop in the Learning Commons, or in referring students to a half-block or adjunct course in reading.