A Structured Approach to Building Reading Skills

Or, Lord help me, I think I accidentally did some "scaffolding"

An issue that has been of deep concern to me for quite a while now is the collapse in reading stamina and comprehension among incoming college students. Reading has always been central to my life and, especially since I have spent the majority of my career in the Shimer Great Books School (formerly the independent Shimer College, which became part of North Central college in 2017), central to my pedagogy as well. We practice a Great Books method made up of small discussion seminars focused on important primary texts (not necessarily “classics” in any narrow sense) or other course materials (such as artworks, musical pieces, or simple lab exercises). A major presupposition of our pedagogy is that students can in fact read, and no longer being able to take that for granted has been a difficult adjustment. For the most part, we have reduced the volume and difficulty level of our reading assignments, to the extent compatible with not completely breaking our own hearts, while sticking as much as possible to the open-ended discussion seminar format, which students still find attractive despite their discomfort with reading.

Since joining North Central College, I have often taught outside our program, whether to fill my teach load or just for the sake of variety or curiosity. (For instance, I sought out the opportunity to teach a formal logic course due to my interest in Hegel, and now it has become a staple offering for me — even though it didn’t help a whole lot with Hegel!) In those larger classes, made up of a less self-selecting group of students, I was facing a unique challenge even prior to the abrupt drop-off in reading skill: namely, how to square my training in discussion-only, primary text-based pedagogy with a large lecture format. My solution has often been to continue assigning primary texts and keep faith with the Great Books commitment to making the course materials, rather than the professor, the center of authority in the classroom, but to be much more flexible about class format day to day—including selective use of lecture (shiver!).

I’ve had the most success with this hybrid format in another staple offering of mine: Ethics, a topic which readily lends itself to a Great Books reading list. In this class, I’ve made it my goal to build up students’ reading skills in a systematic way. I do this through two avenues, one individual and one more group-centered. On the individual level, I hold them accountable for the reading and help them build an important reading skill by periodically assessing their annotation of the text. On the group level, I have created a sequence of exercises that allow them to process larger and larger units of text as a whole. I will describe both in turn.

Annotation Exercise: This is probably the best exercise I have ever invented as a professor. Every week or so, I have them take a picture of a two-page spread in their book, complete with their underlines/highlights and other annotations. Over the years I have varied the principle of selection. Sometimes I direct them all to take a photo of a certain spread. Sometimes I do a “scavenger hunt” (e.g., “choose the pages where Aristotle most fully defines happiness”). But for the most part, I ask them to choose the passage they view as “most important,” with a supplemental mini-essay answer where they explain why they chose the passage they did. I have found that this has the advantage of giving them ownership over a specific passage, and I often structure the days the annotation is due around a “poll” to see which passages the most students choose. Over time, there is a significant trend toward convergence, which makes me think that they are getting better at processing the readings as a whole and understanding what the author is most focused on. (For instance, in the most recent “poll,” which came after we’d been studying Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics for several weeks, nearly all the students were bunched up in the same 4-page range, which I did believe to represent the “most important” passage.)

I actually put significant time into commenting on their annotations, and I try to guide them toward a specific style, exemplified in this sample annotation from Aristotle which I distribute to every class. The goal is to maximize scannability of the text for the sake of easy reviewing and readily finding passages in class. While in a past era I might have been more loosey-goosey in helping them find a style that “works for them,” I believe recent cohorts of students benefit from a more prescriptive approach. It is time-consuming to grade, especially for the first few exercises, but over time 75%-80% of students get the technique and get full points basically every time.

I also check randomly for underlines and gently chide students who only underline their chosen pages. The majority of students appear to understand the benefits and within a few weeks I see, again, 75%-80% of students annotating every page of their reading regularly.

I further incentivize annotation by making all exams open-book, for print books only. I understand that some of my colleagues may be uncomfortable with this requirement on disability grounds, but I think the benefits are too great—and the harms of reading on laptops or other devices too severe—to outweigh those concerns. If a student had an accomodation that conflicted with this requirement, I would of course make an exception for them, but that has never happened. There are always some students who rebel against the print book requirement, out of cheapskatehood or simple stubbornness, but the ability to use their books on the exam is usually such an overwhelming attraction that they get over their resistence. The fact that I take a carrot rather than stick approach also seems to help in defusing potential conflict or discontent on this issue. (For instance, if students don’t have the print book, I still let them turn in annotations applied to a PDF—even though they rarely do a very good job and thus seldom get full points.)

Structured Small-Group Discussion: I don’t claim to be as great an innovator on all my techniques here. I use the common tricks of the trade—brief small-group discussions, in-class writes, etc. My guiding principle, regardless of the class format, is to be text-centered and to make sure the students feel like they’re doing the work themselves. Hence on the days when I do “polls” based on their chosen annotation pages, I pitch it as an opportunity for them to “prove” they chose the right pages—by gathering the key ideas. What results is usually a pretty responsible inventory of the main ideas from the reading, organized broadly chronologically. While I do fill in some gaps along the way, the resulting chart is almost entirely student-motivated, and I make sure to tell them that. “Wow,” I say, “it looks like we’ve got a pretty great overview of the text here! And aside from a handful of minor points, it all came from you!”

My most ambitious exercise sprang up out of sheer desperation to approximate my familiar Shimer seminar format. I happened to be teaching at a time when fewer courses are offered, so the classroom building was mostly empty. Hence I broke the class of 30 into four small groups and sent them to separate rooms to discuss the text, checking in and contributing periodically. Over time, this technique evolved into a structured sequence of activities aimed at helping them to process ever-larger blocks of text. Sending them to their own rooms, which I would only visit periodically, is crucial to the effect of making them feel like they’re doing the work themselves. While I will answer any questions they have and give them occasional nudges, they are mostly on their own.

Given the low level of reading comprehension most students start with, I have centered these exercises on creating usable summaries of the text. I usually do about 5 chapters out of Aristotle per class period (which amounts to 10 pages), and often there will be a pair of shorter chapters that allows me to do four groups (which is the practical maximum I can do and still be guaranteed enough individual spaces for the groups). To be as inclusionary as possible, I ask the groups to take turns reading their section (about two pages) aloud before their begin. This means that students who didn’t do or understand the reading ahead of time have a chance to contribute rather than simply shutting down, as they tend to do in the face of any significant obstacle. Every time I do the exercise, I have them count off afresh, which usually introduces an element of randomization because someone is inevitably absent or has switched seats; this seems to help reduce the potential for interpersonal conflict if someone talks too much, etc.

For the first exercise, I usually focus on Book 1, chs. 1-5, which is actually a fairly challenging passage since Aristotle is reflecting on method and hasn’t yet made any firm claims. I intentionally allow them to flounder a little, just to make them more consciously aware of skills they don’t yet have. The resulting summaries tend to be rough—isolated ideas, presented in no particular order. I try to add any major points that are missing and draw arrows to put things back in Aristotle’s order. No matter what, though, I praise them and take a picture of the summary. I tell them—sincerely, even in the worst case—that they came up with a good initial overview of the reading, especially given that most of them have no experience with philosophy.

In the next class session, I suggest that part of the problem with their summaries was that they weren’t understanding the “flow” of the argument, in part because they hadn’t isolated the main point Aristotle was discussing. Using my annotation sample as a guide to my “most important” passage for the day, I do a freeform exposition of Aristotle’s first full-dress discussion of happiness, highlighting his final definition and then showing how everything else I’ve marked contributes to it. This display does double duty of modelling what I hope they can do with their annotations and drawing their attention to the idea of a “thesis statement” for each chapter. I then have them do in-class small group discussions to try to come up with a one-sentence topic sentence for the remaining chapters of the day’s reading.

For the second session this year, I built the “thesis statement” idea into the breakout group exercise and emphasize that their bullet points should reflect the actual order of presentation in the text. The results are invariably much better, almost night and day. We discuss what caused the difference and whether they could have got it right on the first try—usually there is widespread agreement that the first stumbles were necessary (itself a necessary life lesson for this age group, unfortunately). Again, I praised their work—more sincerely this time!—and took a photo for posterity.

This then laid the groundwork for a third exercise, which I just did yesterday. We were doing Book 8, chs. 1-5, which naturally center on the discussion of the three types of friendship in ch. 3. I started the class by asking them to briefly review ch. 3 so we could list the three types and their main properties together. After getting that all on the table, I asked them to do breakout groups again, this time adding the requirement that they discuss how their section of the reading related to the central ideas in ch. 3. And I’ve got to say—they did a really, really good job. Beyond processing the central point of each individual section of the reading, they were now all thinking about how the whole argument fit together. Again, I praised them—and, since it was the penultimate reading from Aristotle, congratulated them for grappling with the core concepts from a very important and challenging book. (This praise element doesn’t necessarily come naturally to me, but it does seem important!)

I was also pleased to see that their discussion endurance appeared to be growing. In some cases, when I checked in on the group, I just sat there silently for a bit and then left without saying anything, signalling that they were doing well enough on their own. There was one group that finished their summary and broke into a more social conversation while they waited for me to look it over, but I didn’t mind that—social comfort with each other is pedagogically very valuable.

I will say that this year was by far my most successful sequence of break-out discussions. In part, this is simply a matter of the timeslot—I have traditionally done Ethics at 8am, when generating energy for discussion is a challenge, to put it lightly. Different groups of students also seem to generate their own “vibe.” Two years ago, it was good enough to keep going, even though I suspected that most groups just did the bare minimum and otherwise sat in silence. Last year, though, I gave up on the breakout groups because their energy level was so low that the whole thing felt depressing. Strangely, though, things are much different in the early afternoon!

I also suspect that I was more successful because I was more structured and intentional. Indeed, I fear that I have inadvertantly achieved that academic buzzword: scaffolding. In a few short weeks, I got a large group of students to go from treating a text as a grab bag of isolated “fun facts” to thinking about whole long sequences of argumentation as a single unit. And I did it in such a way that they were continually reminded, at every step, that they were doing the work themselves and they were making good progress. I still mourn the lost ability to presuppose what I consider college-level reading skills, and the accompanying loss of depth and nuance in our discussions. But I do think our students may have more of a baseline to work with than we realize. They can actually read in the sheerly mechanical sense of deriving meaning from printed characters, and much of the guidance that they need is pretty easily given and absorbed. It’s just a matter of figuring out ways to get them to do the work and start building those good Aristotelian habits!