Reference no: EM131842640

Reading Report Assignment

Chapter 1: Why Grit Matters

Reading college-level texts is difficult. Luckily, reading comprehension can improve with guided practice! The purpose of this assignment to help you improve your reading comprehension skills, identify the main ideas/issues in a text, and to verify you read the assigned text.

Suggested Pre-Reading Strategies:

I strongly encourage you to take 5-10 minutes to scan the whole text before you read it so that you go into the reading experience with a general sense of what the text is going to argue, who its audience is, and how it relates to your background knowledge. Pre-reading gives you a sense of where you're going before you read the text, so you'll be better able to understand the text and begin to respond critically to the conversation that it engages.

Once you complete the step above, you're encouraged to engage in a conversation with the text as you read. This includes, but is not limited to: highlighting or noting important points and concepts in the margins, writing questions or comments in the margins, and underlining passages you feel are significant. Annotating a text often enhances comprehension because it provides students with a tool to visibly and permanently record, connect, and analyzekey ideas in text. Please review the active reading guides in our course packet (starting on page 20) to further guide you.

Reading Report Steps to Complete:

Once you are done performing a close reading, Create a READING REPORT by writing the following information for each article:

1. SUMMARY: Write down a 1-2 paragraph summary of the article. Keep in mind that a summary should provide a condensed description of the article and be written in your own words. Research shows that you will understand a text better and gain better insight when you rephrase and summarize the text in your own words.This isn't busy work-it will truly help you gain a better understanding of the author's meaning. For more information on how to write a summary, see "How to Write a Summary" on page 195 in our course packet.

2. TOP 3-5 CLAIMS/KEY POINTS: Next, list (and briefly explain and/or delineate on) the top 3-5 claims or key points you believe the author is making in this article. In general, what are the top 3-5 claims or key point the author makes to prove, support, or explain his or her main argument? Make sure you list and explain eachclaim or key point in as much detail as necessary.

3. YOUR THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS/RESPONSE: React in your own words here. Is the author's claims legitimate? Are there any discrepancies or untruths in the piece? Are there any parts of the article that are especially convincing, or that merit further discussion? Take time to write a paragraph or two analyzing the author's claims. Write freely and openly in a casual style.

This is also where you respond to the author with your own ideas. When writing, you should consider yourself in conversation with the author. Through you can't respond directly to him or her, you can respond on your own terms and on your own pace. How do you feel about his or her ideas? Do you agree or disagree? Why? Go into detail about how the article made you feel. Articulate any insights gained from the writing, or any particularly poignant spots. Again, write freely and openly in a casual style.

If we have read multiple articles on a topic, you may also consider reflecting on how this article supports, further complicates, and or/ challenges your understanding of the paper topic we will eventually write a paper on. Where are you seeing connections, agreements, disagreements, and/or alternate viewpoints between this article and others we read together as a class? This is your chance to demonstrate your level of engagement with the text and what you are learning about the paper topic.

After you have gotten your initial and rough ideas out onto paper, you can incorporate them into a formal reading report: simply clean everything up logically and grammatically and type it up. Label each section to help organize your thoughts better and make it easier for your reader to locate information as well.

Students often pull many ideas verbatim from these critiques to be used as development for their essays. If you take these critiques seriously, much of the information can be used as your personal insight and analysis, a valuable component in developing essays.