Deep Reading Strategies for Sociology Students

Deep Reading, Cost/Benefit, and the Construction of Meaning:
Enhancing Reading
Comprehension and Deep Learning in Sociology Courses
Author(s): Judith C. Roberts and Keith A. Roberts
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Teaching Sociology, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr., 2008), pp.
125-140
Published by: American Sociological Association
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DEEP READING, COST/BENEFIT, AND THE
CONSTRUCTION
OF MEANING: ENHANCING READING COMPREHENSION
AND DEEP LEARNING IN SOCIOLOGY COURSES*
Reading comprehension skill is often assumed by sociology
instructors, yet
many college students seem to have marginal reading
comprehension skills,
which may explain why fewer than half of them are actually
doing the read
ing. Sanctions that force students to either read or to pay a price
are based on
a rational choice model of behavior?a perspective that many
students seem
to bring with them. However, deep reading?reading for long-
term retention of
the material and for comprehension at a level that can be
perspective
transforming?involves constructing meaning as one reads.
Students need
help developing reading strategies that enhance this process.

Moreover,
cost/benefit coercion of reading does not necessarily enhance
construction of
meaning or deep-learning; indeed, it may reward minimalist or
surface reading.
This essay is an excursion into theory on deep learning and the
implications of
that theory for engaging students in reading. An assignment
based on multiple
intelligences and fostering reading comprehension is suggested
and some ini
tial data are provided regarding possible success of this
strategy.
Judith C. Roberts
Hanover College
Keith A. Roberts
Hanover College
Reading is a complex process to which
sociologists have paid little attention, de
spite the fact that we do a great deal of it
and expect our students to do it before com
ing to classes. Although children learn the
mechanics of reading in the early elemen
tary grades, reading with understanding and

meaning is a skill that needs to be nurtured
over many years. The emphasis on "reading
to learn," that is, reading with a focus on
comprehension and retention, begins in ear
nest in upper-elementary and middle school.
Even for those students who were highly
successful in high school, however, reading
at the college level can challenge students
beyond their training. Part of the problem is
that reading-to-learn in high school is often
reading for factual information to regurgi
t?te (surface learning) rather than reading to
make meaning and construct a strong argu
ment (deep learning). Certainly in sociology
we expect students to read the texts, arti
cles, and monographs so we can discuss
them in class. For those who become our
majors, we hope they develop a lifelong
passion for reading, scouring literature be
fore making decisions or before undertaking
research projects of their own. Still, do we
have confidence that they have literacy
skills which include reading for deep learn
ing!
Collegians (even professors) can improve
their strategies for enhanced efficiency and

comprehension. It should be little wonder
that, if students do not learn good strate
gies, they may avoid reading or may com
prehend a text poorly. When given an as
signment, some students feel they have met
their obligation if they have forced their
eyes to "touch" (in appropriate sequence)
each word on the pages assigned. How can
we entice students to read the materials we
assign, and how do we help them develop
*Paige Bradley and Catherine Wallace served
as research assistants in this project. Thanks to
anonymous TS reviewers for helpful feedback.
Please address all correspondence to Keith Rob
erts, Department of Sociology and Anthropol
ogy, Hanover College, Hanover, IN 47243; e
mail: [email protected]
Teaching Sociology, Vol. 36, 2008 (April: 125-140) 125
126 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY
strategies for deep comprehension and re
tention of that material? Are there subtle

ways we can both prod them to read and
help them develop literacy skills?without
spending our own precious time explicitly
teaching "reading"? Can extrinsic sanc
tions?positive and negative?really lead to
an intrinsic motivation: deep reading?
College professors, like teachers at all
levels, can play an important role in their
students' success by explicitly addressing
issues of reading comprehension and the use
of reading strategies. However, we first
need to understand some basics on how
"good readers" comprehend. What proc
esses are involved in making sense of
printed materials? What do "good readers"
do as they read? A useful first step for each
faculty member is to employ metacognitive
reflection; that is, to actively think about
his/her own reading processes and strategies
(Schoenbach et al. 1999). David Perkins
(1999) calls metacognition "knowledge and
management of one's own cognitive proc
essing" (p. 85)?thinking about how we
process information. Professors might read

something, and then consider what is going
on in their own heads when they read and
retain an especially interesting or challeng
ing piece. You may ask, for example, what
am I thinking about even as I read this es
say? If you want to remember ideas in this
article, what mental processes are you using
this minute to make the ideas stick and to
create meaning that matters to you for the
long term? What do you do with the words
on this page to make the ideas they repre
sent stick in your own brain? Can we help
students learn these strategies (Ciardiello
2003; Hock and Mellard 2005; Schoenbach
et al. 1999)?
A good reader forms visual images to
represent the content being read, connects
to emotions, recalls settings and events that
are similar to those presented in the read
ing, predicts what will happen next, asks
questions, and thinks about the use of lan
guage. One of the most important steps,
however, is to connect the manuscript we
are reading with what we already know and
to attach the facts, ideas, concepts, or per
spectives to that known material. Later we

recall it by referring back to its association
with what we had previously mastered.
These are some of the ways that successful
readers make sense of textual material
(Co?tant and Perchemlides 2005; Fordham
2006; Guthrie and Alvermann 1999; Hurst
2005; Jensen 1998; Leveen, 2005; Spargo
1977; Tovani 2005). In the research on
memory, this is called "semantic memory"
(rooted in meaning) as opposed to "episodic
memory" (tied to a specific joke, gesture,
episode, or pneumonic to aid recall) (Tagg
2003).
Few of us are explicitly taught reading
comprehension strategies. Many young peo
ple simply discover them by trial and error;
others never do. Many of us are not con
sciously aware of the metacognitive proc
esses by which we remember what Weber
had to say when he wrote about bureaucra
cies. We developed our own strategies and
they worked; thus, we felt successful and
we continued in the educational system.
However, what about those students who
did not intuitively or accidentally discover
successful strategies? These students are
often in our classes hoping to be successful

and needing help with comprehension tech
niques.
Recent research suggests that many col
lege students do not read with effective
comprehension strategies and, in fact, do
not always complete reading assignments
(Applegate and Applegate 2004; Kuh 2004;
McCarthy and Kuh 2006). A national sur
vey of 155,000 college students at 470 col
leges and universities revealed that 44.5
percent spend less than 10 hours per week
in any sort of class preparation; nearly 80
percent spend less than 20 hours (Kuh
2001; Tagg 2003). This means that four out
of five students spend an hour (or less) of
study time for each hour in class, and this
includes time spent writing papers and
studying for exams. Even this number may
be high. In a study specifically of students
in sociology courses in one of the largest
undergraduate sociology programs in the
DEEP READING, COST/BENEFIT, AND CONSTRUCTION OF
MEANING 127

country, 37.7 percent of students said they
spend less than five hours a week studying
for all classes and 69.6 percent spend less
than 10 hours per week (Delucchi and
Korgen 2002). While interviewing students,
we were surprised by the frankness with
which many college students?including
some very successful students?admit that
they do not read their assigned materials at
all. Howard (2004), reporting specifically
on surveys in introductory sociology
courses, reports that only 40 percent
"always or usually" read the textbook.
Even among the students who eventually
earned an A or B, just over half said they
always or usually read the text.
An important question for instructors,
then, is how to make reading experiences
meaningful so that students will want to
learn via the written word and will develop
an appreciation for the various strategies
that good readers utilize. One strategy that
college faculty use to encourage their stu
dents to read assignments is to give quizzes
on the assigned readings; however, such
quizzes often encourage college students
only to learn key words and other concepts
at the knowledge level of Benjamin Bloom's

Taxonomy (Bloom 1956). In short, they
encourage surface learning based in epi
sodic memory?short-term memorization
for a day or two?rather than deep learning
that is transformative of one's perspective
and involves long-term comprehension
(Tagg 2003). If the instructor hopes for
students to come away with the "big ideas"
and the major concepts, there may be ap
proaches other than quizzes that can be
more successful. This essay examines issues
of reading comprehension in light of current
theory on "deep learning" and offers one
approach that ensures that students read the
materials while simultaneously introducing
them to strategies for deeper comprehen
sion. Noteworthy is that students may learn
new reading strategies from this assignment
without sociologists using class time to
teach those strategies explicitly.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature on the techniques of learning
reading and on reading comprehension from
preschool through high school in the educa
tional subfield of reading is extensive (Baer
2005; Borner 2006; Courtant and Perchem
lides 2005; Fordham 2006; Grammill 2006;
Pardo 2004; Santa 2006; Tovani 2005).
However, only a few articles on reading
among college students are available

(McCarthy and Kuh 2006; National Educa
tion Association 2005a, 2005b; Roberts
2006; Spargo 1977; Williams 2004). Most
of these articles address the amount of read
ing by collegians rather than investigating
reading comprehension, and virtually none
of the latter has made its way to sociological
venues.
In sociology publications, there is almost
nothing published in the way of empirical or
theoretical analysis of reading in sociology
courses. There is much on writing: in the
past three decades there have been three
commercially published writing guides for
sociology students (Bart and Frankel 1986;
Johnson et al.; Sociology Writing Group
2001); the ASA Teaching Resources Center
has published a monograph for faculty on
Writing in the Undergraduate Sociology
Curriculum; and there have been 54 articles
published in Teaching Sociology since 1980
on writing in sociology courses (Stokes,
Roberts, and Kinney 2002). However, since
January 1986, Teaching Sociology (TS) has

published only two articles specifically on
reading in sociology courses, both occur
ring in the same issue in 2004. A third arti
cle mentions "critical reading and writing"
in the title, but the analysis is entirely about
student essay writing (Althauser and Darnall
2001). Three other recent articles do not
focus explicitly on reading as its topic, but
they offer very specific strategies for com
prehension when reading a professional
research article (Bordt and Pager 2005;
Purvin and Kain 2005; Yamane 2006).
128_ TEACHING SOCIOLOGY
Bordt and Pager (2005), in particular, focus
on the connections to deep learning. Ya
mane's analysis is about assignments that
get students ready for in-depth class discus
sions, and his "course preparation assign
ments" also focus on learning that goes be
yond surface memorization to engagement
of higher-order thinking skills. None of
these articles is about reading per se or is
based on the scholarly literature regarding
reading comprehension, but they do each

offer suggestions consistent with this line of
research.
The only TS article in the past 20 years
devoted explicitly to reading was an analy
sis by Howard (2004) of the use of "Just-In
Time" quizzes?taken by students on-line
no later than two hours before class meets
so the instructor can use the information for
class preparation. These did seem to en
courage reading. Howard, citing Rosen
blatt, points out that effective reading re
quires that "readers construct knowledge as
they bring their own input to the text" (p.
385). We think Howard is correct about
this, but we are less sanguine that any form
of quiz, and especially objective quizzes,
will enhance that kind of reading. More
over, Howard points to the heavy time com
mitment that such quizzes require. While
his innovation is very interesting, it seems
to us to be only a first step.
Lewis (2004) discusses student reading in
an article describing "book clubs" for stu
dents in which the students read non
analytical narratives from various points of
view regarding experiences with mental
illness. Students in this class were highly

motivated to read these essays because they
are personally relevant, are written in an
engaging narrative format, and are proc
essed in small group "book clubs." The
approach seems especially workable in up
per-level courses with an engaged popula
tion. The essay tells us less about how to
help students connect to and comprehend
readings that are not relevant to their imme
diate personal experiences and are more
analytical in nature.
A very incisive analysis of reading com
prehension in the reading literature was a
study on metacognition and reading at the
high-school level by Schoenbach et al.
(1999). Working with students at Thurgood
Marshall Academic High School in the San
Francisco Bay area, the authors found that
reading is a complex mental process that
involves making meaning by making con
nections. Experienced readers develop men
tal representations of the text that provide
frameworks for understanding new mate
rial. For example, while reading a novel
about the sea, a reader may visualize events

in an ocean-side village that is familiar to
her, making the story more memorable. It
embeds the events and ideas in semantic
memory. Reading involves problem solv
ing; the reader makes sense from the words
on the page as she/he relates new materials
to pre-existing ideas, memories, and knowl
edge. Good readers are mentally engaged,
motivated, and strategic in monitoring their
reading (Sousa 2006). The question is how
to create that disposition.
THEORY, DEEP LEARNING,
AND READING FOR MEANING
What theoretical frame helps us make sense
of student inclination or resistance to read
the assigned material? First, deep compre
hension reading is connected to research on
deep (versus surface) learning. John Tagg
(2003) offers a rational choice perspective
on why students make many of their
choices. He suggests that students often like
multiple choice tests (including objective
style quizzes) precisely because these en
hance surface learning which can be accom
plished with surface reading and "episodic"

memory. These forms of evaluation allow
one to pass tests and courses with minimum
effort. Deep learning?the long term and
perspective-transforming learning that we
aspire to instill in our students?requires
engagement with the material and connec
tions to semantic memory. However, the
student culture at many colleges stresses
degrees, credits, and credentials as the long
term objective. Delucchi and Krogen (2002)
MEANING 129
found that 73.3 percent of the students en
rolled in sociology courses at one university
would take a course knowing they would
learn little or nothing if they thought they
could earn an "A." Deeply engaged mas
tery of the material is not valued and is
therefore not pursued by the majority of
students (Horowitz 1987). The issue be
comes how to get the maximum gain
(course credits; a respectable GPA) with
minimum investment of effort. Objective
tests often allow one to skim material a few

days before an examination looking for the
kinds of facts, definitions, concepts, and
other specific information that the particular
instructor tends to stress in examinations.
Those facts and definitions are then put into
one's episodic memory?and soon forgotten
(Tagg 2003). The goal of passing a course
or of achieving a certain GPA is enhanced
with minimal effort when evaluation of stu
dent work does not require investment into
the essence of the argument or the meaning
of the connections the author is making. If
analysis, synthesis, or evaluation is not re
quired, reading at that deeper level will not
occur.
Tagg discusses the rational choice process
by which students allocate their time
seeking maximum gain with minimal effort.
Students who buy into this definition of
college life engage a cost/benefit analysis,
and reading the material may be an unwise
use of valuable time if there are no adverse
consequences. The two most common sanc
tions are poor performance on quizzes or
embarrassment during class discussion.
From the student rational choice perspec
tive, superficial skimming of the material
makes sense, as it allows one to minimize

those costs. Clearly not all students seek
only minimal engagement in academics.
(This was not the case for most of us who
continued in academia as a career choice,
for we found passion in the engagement
with ideas and inquiry.) In short, a rational
choice approach to the curriculum often
leads to surface learning, and that does not
necessitate deep reading for meaning.
It is critically important to understand that
there are many forces at work in fostering
this rational choice approach?it is not a
matter of lazy or ill-willed students. First,
anti-intellectualism in the society is ram
pant, and this "leaks" into college life and
has done so for roughly two centuries
(Horowitz 1987). Second, surface learning
via minimalist effort and simplistic memori
zation is often reinforced in many (not all)
high schools. Third, the structures and bu
reaucratic reward systems of universities
reward and reinforce this simplistic
cost/benefit process in a host of ways
(Adams and Balfour 2004; Roberts and
Donahue 2000; Seeley 1969). The McDon
aldization of the academe?simplistic meas
ures of quality and of competence reduced
to efficient scores and numbers?foster sur

face learning. Fourth, these issues and
trends are tied to the larger matter of mod
ernity. Max Weber argued that modernity
itself involves a movement to rationalization
of the entire social system, and this has
moved beyond substantive rationality into a
technical rationality that focuses on master
ing minute technical skills at the expense of
understanding the meaning of the big pic
ture (Adams and Balfour 2004). So the
process is rooted in macro aspects of soci
ety that seep into the classroom. Much of
the writing on deep learning examines this
problem of how our culture and our aca
demic structures and norms undermine deep
learning, and some authors have focused on
amelioration of the problem (Palmer 1998;
Tagg 2003), but institutional reform re
mains beyond the scope of this essay. The
important point here is that it is unproduc
tive to blame either students or public
schools for a narrow rational choice focus
on technical competence; we in academia
have done our share to contribute to this
stress on getting the best grade with the
least understanding of the larger meaning.
(True/false and multiple-choice tests, Tagg
points out, reward learning that entails out

of-context, superficial memorization of con
cepts.)
To be fair to rational choice theory in this
discussion, we must recognize that it does
acknowledge intrinsic motivations (i.e. in
ternal rewards, such as self-esteem) for be
haviors; however, rational choice theory
never makes clear how extrinsically im
posed sanctions can evolve into intrinsic
motivations. Can extrinsically imposed
costs and benefits motivate one to seek
meaning? To some extent, if we want read
ing-for-meaning and long-term retention of
the ideas, we must find ways to get students
to seek meaning?to become implicit social
constructionists rather than exchange theo
rists. They must find intrinsic meaning in
reading rather than seeing it as something
they must "get through" in order to receive
the reward at the other end of the tunnel
(course credits; a degree). As a punitive
technique to punish those who do not read,

quizzes do not seem to be an effective solu
tion. Indeed, quizzes are based on and rein
force the rational choice approach that is
part of the problem. Will simply increasing
the costs or benefits ultimately lead to seek
ing meaning? It seems contradictory. Read
ing for meaning involves engagement for its
own sake and embedding ideas in semantic
memory. Deep learning involves a transfor
mation in perspective, and "deep reading"
seems to require a transformation in attitude
toward learning itself. How one creates that
change is a huge challenge, but it is clear
that the purely punitive approach is not
working. We suspect that reading
enticement assignments need to be consis
tent with the anticipated outcome. As Mar
tin Luther King, Jr. noted regarding all
change, the ends and the means must be
consistent, for the means must be the end in
process (King 1957).
What we all want in our classrooms are
students who seek meaning in the reading so
that in the process of dialogue and ex

change, knowledge can be socially con
structed. Goldsmid and Wilson (1980) also
remind us that in the classroom, our goals,
our teaching methods, and our method of
evaluation must be consistent. Coherence
between means and ends contributes to deep
learning?long-term and perspective
transforming engagement. The methods we
use to entice students to read must also be
consistent with the long term objective.
If there are many factors contributing to
superficial reading, there are also entice
ments to deep reading. First and quite obvi
ously, intrinsic interest in the material is a
critical factor in motivation for deep read
ing, but we cannot be sure that our students
will be intrinsically interested in that which
fascinates us. A second factor, curiosity,
can be enhanced when professors make
comments about the forthcoming assignment
and why it is interesting or why it is rele
vant to important issues the class has been
exploring (Roberts 2006). Third, deep read
ing is enhanced whenever readers come to
see connections to their own lives, their
emotions, or their future ambitions. If the

reader finds that the textual material illumi
nates something already experienced, then
motivation to deeply engage the reading is
heightened. Further, if students engage in
deep reading, they often find connections
between concepts and constructs in different
courses, and this is stimulating and interest
ing. Fourth, deep reading embeds ideas and
skills in one's semantic memory rather than
in episodic memory, which actually makes
it easier to remember the course material
over time. Once they have learned to focus
on deep learning, students may see an in
strumental value to it as well as an intrinsic
value. The task of learning becomes more
rewarding, enjoyable, and long term. Fifth,
if the readings themselves elicit and require
"perspective taking"?a process that is at
the very core of deep learning (Roberts
2002; Tagg 2003)?students will find that
they become more deeply engaged. Finally,
if students know that the evaluation process
for the course is going to stress higher order
thinking skills?analysis, synthesis, and
evaluation?then they realize that they sim
ply must read deeply. If texts and papers
allow the student to be successful with only
rote memorization (knowledge and compre

hension) there is little enticement to read
deeply.
The important point is this: there are
many ways to connect to and make sense of
MEANING 131
reading material, as we know from the lit
erature on learning styles and multiple intel
ligences. Sociologically we might say that
there are many ways in which one may con
struct new meaning. Deep reading is much
more likely if students can employ a learn
ing strategy that is compatible with the
reader's own cognitive style for processing
new information (auditory, visual-verbal,
spatial, kinesthetic, and so forth). We can
not impose a particular style for processing
meaning on students; we can only help them
find ways to do that. A method for helping
students connect to reading by using their
own best strategies is discussed below.
THE CONTEXT AND METHOD
OF THIS PROJECT
An inquiry project developed by the first

author examined the reading habits and atti
tudes of college students at a liberal arts
college of about 1,000 students located in
the Midwest. This is not a random sample
of collegians, for the college has competi
tive admissions standards, roughly half of
the students having been in the top 10 per
cent of their high school graduating classes.
This made some of the findings even more
important, we believe, for if strong students
are not reading with good comprehension,
then clearly there are many other collegians
who are not benefiting from reading the
assigned materials. This may be in large
part because their reading comprehension
skills are quite weak.
The project is still underway, but the data
collection has involved a qualitative survey
at the beginning of several of the classes, an
end-of-course written survey, and post
course interviews of students who had been
enrolled in the classes, conducted by under
graduate student research assistants (to
make the process less threatening).
Forty students (16 males and 24 females)
were surveyed initially. When asked "How
would you describe yourself as a reader?"
student responses varied from "I am a vora
cious reader" and "I love to read" to less

positive self assessments: "I don't read
unless I have to," "I am an extremely slow
reader," "I am not very good at reading,"
"Reading is one of my least favorite things
to do," and "I get easily distracted when
I'm reading." Again, these were from stu
dents who were enrolled at a highly selec
tive college.
Students listed their weaknesses in read
ing in three major areas: reading too
slowly, getting distracted, and remembering
only a small portion of the reading material
by the time they completed the assignment.
When asked specifically about reading in
college courses, students mentioned the
difficult vocabulary and the problem of
staying interested in very long reading as
signments that often become "boring."
Some, but not all, of the college students
surveyed were aware of various reading
comprehension strategies such as re
reading, highlighting, taking notes, creating
visual representations, writing a journal,

and connecting personally to the reading in
other ways. The challenge was how to
strengthen students' reading comprehension.
Reading Responses: An Active Reading
Assignment
The first author, whose specialty is reading,
designed an assignment based upon research
in the areas of (1) reading comprehension
and (2) divergent "learning styles"1 (Kolb
1984; McCarthy 1987; McCarthy and
McCarthy 2005) or "multiple intelligences"
(Armstrong 1993; Campbell, Campbell, and
Dickson 1999; Gardner 1983, 1993, 2000).
Since students learn in a variety of ways, it
makes sense to have assignments that allow
students to comprehend and express their
learning style in a manner that is consistent
with their mode of learning. Quizzes do not
do this. The key to this alternative assign
ment was to help students learn a variety of
strategies to connect with the reading
(hopefully associating it with something
they already knew and to embed ideas in
semantic learning). The idea was also to
*An on-line learning styles inventory is avail
able at http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/
learningsty les/ilsweb. html.

encourage readers to use more than one
type of the "reading responses" during the
term so they could discover some new read
ing comprehension/retention strategies. The
assignment allowed students to respond to
the written material and essentially summa
rize core issues in any one of six formats,
each of which was based on one or more of
Howard Gardner's forms of "multiple intel
ligence" (Armstrong 1993; Campbell,
Campbell, and Dickson 1999; Gardner
1983, 1993, 2000). These eight modalities
are: (1) verbal/linguistic (verbal process
ing), (2) musical (pitch, rhythm, timbre),
(3) logical mathematical (quantitative and/or
categorization), (4) visual/spatial (mental
visualization, organization of ideas in
graphic or diagrammatic form), (5) bodily
kinesthetic (hands-on activity), (6) interper
sonal (interaction with others), (7) intraper
sonal (introspective), and (8) naturalist
(classification of natural world?which is
less relevant to sociology).

For those interested in the issue of deep
learning, helping students connect in deep
ways to the reading is an important con
cern. For deep learning to occur, students
must be making meaning out of the reading,
and to make meaning, we must be cognizant
of the way various individuals construct
reality. To put Gardner's model in socio
logical terms, these are eight ways in which
people process information and experiences
in order to construct meaning. If these are
the ways in which people embed meaningful
ideas so they can remember them, then our
assignments should take seriously the fact
that learning is multifaceted and should al
low more than a single type of response to
reading material (National Education Asso
ciation 2005b).
In three education2 and four sociology
courses, students completed written reading
responses for each reading assignment. The
assignment follows:
Respond to the text in ways that help you mas
ter the material and that help me see that you
are engaging the material and keeping up with

the reading. There will be 29 dates when read
ing responses are due. You are expected to
submit 25 reading responses, so on four occa
sions when you are swamped with other mate
rial, you do not need to submit a response
(though I do still expect you to be able to dis
cuss the readings in class). Do one of the fol
lowing when there is a "reading response"
due. (You can vary your approach to this as
signment; you need not always use the same
strategy.)
a. Connecting to the Text: visualizing,
questioning, responding (linguistic;
intrapersonal)
Underline key ideas?mark in mar
gins, make comments, put question
marks, visualize concepts and ideas
in your mind.
Then go back through your underlin
ing and margin notes: write five

"big" questions that represent key
concepts in the chapter.
Answer at least two of the questions
or write a commentary on why you
think these are the core issues in this
reading material.
b. Summarizing the readings and visualiz
ing the key ideas (visual/spatial, logical
mathematical, and/or linguistic)
Do one of the following (you may
want to use graphic organizers for
this):
Make a visual or graphic organizer
that includes the important concepts
for that chapter, (visual/spatial and
logical mathematical) [See Appendix
for several examples of graphic or
ganizers.]
Make a chart that shows the most
important concepts, (visual/spatial;
logical mathematical)
Make several lists of organized
categorized?ideas related to the

chapter, (logical mathematical)
c. Reading Response Journal: After read
ing each portion of the assignment, re
spond with a question or two or several
comments in a response journal. Read
20n this campus, there is no major in educa
tion, only education certification. All students
major in a liberal arts field; roughly 25-30 per
cent of the students seeking elementary educa
tion certification also happen to major in sociol
ogy. Because the standards for admission to the
education program are high, the education stu
dents are among the best students on the cam
pus.
MEANING 133
on and repeat the journal response
(verbal/linguistic; intrapersonal).
d. Studying as a Group: Talk with one or

two peers about the important aspects of
the text for you (interpersonal; ver
bal/linguistic). One person should serve
as recorder who will list who partici
pated in the study group and write-up of
the key concepts that were discussed.
e. Create a song or a rap: Create a song
or a rap about the reading assignment
which you then audiotape and turn in to
the instructor, (musical)
Evaluation of these reading responses is
quite simple. Entries that demonstrate a
basic or minimal effort to comprehend and
retain the material result in three points;
solid summaries or indications of connec
tions result in four points, really extraordi
nary responses (with unusual depth, creativ
ity, and/or thoroughness) earn five points.
Failure to submit a response results in zero
points. Even the prospect of three points is
enough incentive to entice students to do the
reading responses, for they add up to a total
that is equivalent to one exam.

In our experience, deciding whether a
response is a three, four, or five can be
done in well under one minute and often an
instructor can evaluate three per minute. It
is quickly obvious whether students have
put much thought into these assignments. So
a class of 25 can be evaluated in about 12
minutes?no more than it takes to grade a
quiz (and less time if you include time to
write that quiz). A much larger class might
be evaluated by a student assistant once the
criteria and some models of each level of
work are established. However, we find it
useful to see what the students are getting
out of the reading, so we do the evaluations
ourselves, and we sometimes get intrigued
and read materials more closely. Also, dur
ing the first two weeks, we find that stu
dents need feedback, so some comments on
how to improve or what was especially well
done are written. The time commitment for
the first couple of weeks might mean a cou
ple of minutes per Reading Response. After
the second week, a simple score and a few
words on each assignment are sufficient.
A quick look at the Concept Mapping or
the Conversational Roundtable graphic or

ganizers in the appendix will illustrate how
conversion of prose into an organizational
scheme requires engagement and thought.
We should add that in these courses, exami
nations also stressed big ideas, analysis,
synthesis, evaluation, connections of ideas,
and "working with" the ideas, not memori
zation of definitions or bits of information.
"Tests" were take-home essays or were in
class essays in which students wrote on inte
gration/application questions that had been
provided in advance. Thus, the evaluative
processes were consistent with the Reading
Responses and class discussions: a quality
essay was based on ability to compose and
support an argument. The big picture (deep
learning) issues were the focus of each of
the courses.
EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS
We find that with this technique, students
not only do the reading, they are more
likely to participate in class since they have
actively processed the reading material.
They do something with the readings. In

addition, both professors in this project re
corded daily class participation scores, so
students knew they were being evaluated on
the quality of their contributions to the class
discussion. They were forewarned that
those who had not done the reading were
less likely to make substantive contributions
and that we could usually tell if someone
was speculating rather than grounding
her/his comments on the reading.
We have some indicators that reading
responses enticed students to read, but more
importantly, they helped some students to
develop reading comprehension strategies.
A follow-up survey was distributed and
post-course interviews were conducted at
the conclusion of three of the courses. The
survey instrument provided feedback on the
reading response assignments and student
engagement in reading. Fifty-eight percent
of the students surveyed stated that they
134_TEACHING SOCIOLOGY
read 100 percent or "almost all" of the

reading. Another 20 percent reported read
ing 75 percent of the assigned readings. So
a total of 78 percent of the students stated
that they read 75 percent or more of the
reading assignments, and the amount of
reading in each class was substantial
(typically about 50 pages per class meet
ing). The reasons most often stated for com
pleting the reading assignments were the
Reading Response assignment and points
given for class participation. When asked,
"Do you feel that the various forms of read
ing responses helped you to engage the ma
terial more effectively?" 85 percent of the
students indicated that the Reading Re
sponses helped them to engage the textual
material.
When asked, "Did you learn anything
about yourself as a reader by doing the re
sponses?" 68 percent of students in the
study responded affirmatively. Qualita
tive/narrative responses included:

I found that by taking time to respond or re
flect, I was able to grasp the information bet
ter.
If I write in some form, I retain information
better.
I learned that I focus better when there is an
assignment directly related to the reading.
I discovered that I learn more if I create and
answer specific questions as I read.
I liked the graphic organizers that made me
think of the "big ideas."
If you assign interactive responses, students
will read more.
In course evaluations and post-course
interviews, some students reported that they
have continued to use the reading strategies
learned in this class in other courses. At this
point the data on post-course use of the
strategies (that is, subsequent courses)
would have to be called anecdotal, for those
were voluntary comments rather than elic
ited questions posed to every student. Still,

some students have indicated that they have
learned techniques for reading more deeply
and those reading strategies are carrying
over to other courses.
THEORY REVISITED
For students, the initial response to reading
responses may be the desire for a short-term
reward: points for doing the assignment or
for class participation. For some students, it
may never go beyond that point. In that
case, reading responses may be little differ
ent than quizzes, though we would argue
that they take less instructor time to create
and evaluate than quizzes and they do allow
for a "multiplicity of intelligences"?
multiplicity of approaches to constructing
meaning. For some students, however,
reading comprehension is enhanced as stu
dents learn new strategies for connecting to
the material. As they learn to connect?to
compare and contrast, to see how the argu
ment was constructed by mapping the con
cepts, or to visually diagram the relation
ships between ideas?they may begin to see
some of the intrinsic joys of intellectual
inquiry. This means that learning itself

takes on meaning and the reading process
may become meaningful in a way that was
not previously salient to students. This is a
step toward deep learning; it is a step to
ward learning as more than a temporary
means?something to get out of the way?in
order to reach another goal. The ultimate
idea is for learning itself to become con
strued as meaningful. In one sense, our ob
jective in this project is to create implicit
social constructionists when it comes to the
college classroom.
If deep learning requires students to en
gage the materials, to relate those materials
to something they already know, to con
struct their own meaning, and then to em
bed their learning in semantic memory (the
memory that relates to meaning rather than
episodes or pneumonic devices), then that
learning must use the methods that readers
use to make meaning. The intention and
purpose behind this move to connect deep

MEANING 135
reading to deep learning is that we must
recognize that readers do not all do this in
the same way. Gardner (1983, 1993, 2000)
and others have suggested that some people
make meaning only when they orally and
auditorally process ideas. They must hear
themselves talk about the connections.
Many people who have this kind of learning
style will glaze over when they see a
graphic organizer that tries to represent the
same ideas in a visual spatial diagram.
However, creating a visual diagram can be
the best way for some people to make sense
of the material. If part of the task of deep
learning is to help students ferret out mean
ing and to become implicit social construc
tionists, it makes sense to respond to the
varieties of ways in which people "connect"
to new material. By drawing on reading
comprehension theory and multiple intelli
gence theory in designing assignments, we
believe sociology instructors can learn

something important about how sociological
concepts can be assimilated into the think
ing?into the deep processing?of those new
to the discipline.
PROBLEMS AND DILEMMAS
We do know from course evaluations that
some students hedged by reading just
enough to do a reading response, and highly
capable students are sometimes able to
"bluff" effectively. (Interestingly, some
narrative comments on course evaluations
included "complaints" they read so much
more of the material assigned for this
class.) The strategy is not fail-safe against
students trying to get by with the least pos
sible work. Moreover, we are aware that
once a reading has been used in a course,
there may be electronic copies of reading
responses shared from students who studied
that text in a previous term. No strategy can
ensure that it will foster intrinsic satisfac
tions or deep learning, but if means and
ends are consistent, the potential is far
greater that students will learn strategies for
deep reading and intrinsic satisfactions of
deep learning.

There may well be other strategies to en
hance reading that would be more effective
than Reading Responses. We view this as
only a first step. We look forward to even
more creative ideas for how to truly engage
students in their sociological reading, but
we encourage innovations in which the en
ticement method has some resonance with
the ultimate objective of perspective
transforming deep learning. Methods that
lend themselves to intrinsic satisfactions of
true engagement and connectedness are
more likely to contribute to that end.
CONCLUSION
Initial research has shown that not all stu
dents come to college with reading skills
that will ensure their success in college.
College faculty can be proactive in helping
students become more active and engaged in
reading assignments?an essential step to
ward the larger objective of deep learning.
Many students find that written responses to
reading are useful in making the reading
assignments more accessible. Students are
motivated to read more carefully when they
are provided with a variety of ways to re

spond to the text?ways that are consistent
with their own learning style. The fact that
the method of enticing students to read also
taught them new strategies for comprehen
sion meant that the means were consistent
with the end?deeper reading for deep
learning. More than half of the students
found that these reading responses helped
them to understand their own reading skills
and habits. The fact that points are given
for these reading responses was a significant
component of the assignment, but many
students found that they learned new ways
to read more deeply and to construct their
own meanings from the text. The overall
quality of class discussions also improved
significantly once these authors began using
reading response assignments combined
with daily class participation points. While
not all students became readers for con
struction of meaning, at least some found
that reading can be more than a hurdle to
136_TEACHING SOCIOLOGY
jump or to evade in pursuit of a degree.
Deep learning requires a profound en
gagement with ideas and a search for mean
ing in those ideas that involves personal

salience for the learner (Tagg 2003). Only
when this is the case will learning be stored
in long-term semantic memory. Yet as
many as half or even three-quarters of our
students (probably variable by school and
by type of academe) are implicit rational
choice thinkers when it comes to learning,
and their long-term objective is a degree
rather than personal transformation and
growth. It seems that at least in regards to
their attitudes toward learning, a paradigm
shift by students is needed. Such a transfor
mation is a daunting prospect, and we must
think about how this change can be facili
tated as we design student work. Assign
ments that focus only on rewards and pun
ishments as the motivation for doing aca
demic work seem unlikely to facilitate a
paradigm shift. If we want deep learning
(and reading that entails in-depth engage
ment), our assignments need to appeal to
the multiple ways in which students make
meaning. We must set forth work that
plants seeds that can result in deep learning,
and those seeds must entice, mentor, and
lead students into meaning-seeking reading

and attentiveness. Our means of instruction
must be consistent with our long-term ob
jectives for student learning.
APPENDIX.
SAMPLES OF GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS
Venn Diagram: Compare and Contrast
Observations, Inferences, Connections, Questions:
Conceptual Target*
MEANING 137
APPENDIX (cont'd.)
Concept Mapping: Linking ideas together as the author links
them. Place the core concept of idea in
the center rectangle and put secondary ideas or concepts in
adjacent circles to indicate connections of
ideas. Draw your own concept map.
Three Column Organizer
Core idea Description Application
Conclusions

APPENDIX (cont'd.)
*from Jim Burke Reading Reminders, Hanover, NH:
Boynton/Cook Publishers. 2000.
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Judith Roberts, Chair of the Education Department
at Hanover College, specializes in reading comprehen
sion and language arts.
Keith Roberts, professor of sociology at Hanover
College, writes on deep learning, sociological writing,
introductory sociology, and sociology of religion.
Article Contentsp. 125p. 126p. 127p. 128p. 129p. 130p. 131p.
132p. 133p. 134p. 135p. 136p. 137p. 138p. 139p. 140Issue
Table of ContentsTeaching Sociology, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr.,
2008), pp. i-ii, 95-196Front MatterThe Converging Landscape
of Higher Education: Perspectives, Challenges, and a Call to the
Discipline of Sociology [pp. 95-107]How Sociological Leaders
Teach: Some Key Principles [pp. 108-124]Deep Reading,
Cost/Benefit, and the Construction of Meaning: Enhancing
Reading Comprehension and Deep Learning in Sociology
Courses [pp. 125-140]NotesIntegrating the Complete Research
Project into a Large Qualitative Methods Course [pp. 141-
149]The Bottom Line: An Exercise to Help Students Understand
How Social Inequality Is Actively Constructed [pp. 150-
160]Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 161-162]Review:
untitled [pp. 162-163]Review: untitled [pp. 163-165]Review:
untitled [pp. 183-184]Film and Video ReviewsReview: untitled
[pp. 185-186]Review: untitled [pp. 186-187]Review: untitled
[pp. 187-189]Review: untitled [pp. 189-191]Review: untitled

[pp. 191-193]Review: untitled [pp. 193-195]Back Matter
Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Vol. 13,
No. 1, February 2013, pp. 86 – 99.
Using content reading assignments in a psychology course to
teach
critical reading skills
Debbie Van Camp1 and Wesley Van Camp2
Abstract: Liberal arts students are expected to graduate college
with fully
developed critical reading and writing skills. However, for a
variety of reasons
these skills are not always as well developed as they might be -
both during and
upon completion of college. This paper describes a reading
assignment that was
designed to increase students’ discipline-specific reading and
writing skills. The
assignment was piloted in a mid-level social psychology class.
Pre-test/post-test
comparisons indicate substantial improvement in students’
ability to identify
thesis statements, recognize and interpret evidence, and other
effective and
critical reading skills. Furthermore, students themselves rate the
assignment as
efficacious in helping them with both their reading

comprehension and writing
skills.
Keywords: critical reading, reading comprehension, written
communication
skills, undergraduate education.
I. Introduction.
This paper presents the outcome assessment of a semester-long
series of assignments designed to
develop undergraduates’ reading comprehension and critical
reading skills. However, the idea
for the assignment was first inspired by the observation that
many of our students struggle to
write at an appropriate discipline-specific college level. In
particular, they seem to struggle with
forming thesis statements, providing synthesized evidence for
their thesis statements, and
summarizing an author’s position when using it to support their
own claims.
One of the hallmarks of a liberal arts education is the
development of excellence in both
writing and critical reading skills. Indeed, many employers
acknowledge that while the specific
skills of any given profession require on-the-job training, they
expect graduates entering the
workplace to possess these ‘soft skills’. Of these skills, reading
comprehension is often ranked
highest, with 63% of employers rating it as ‘very important’;
unfortunately, employers also rank
communication at the top of the list of skills in which college
graduates are deficient (National
Endowment of the Arts, 2007, p.14). Furthermore, students

themselves seem to be aware that
communication skills generally, and specifically how to read
critically and effectively, are skills
that they should learn in college (Walker, 2008). Given the
importance of these skills, the
observations that they are increasingly lacking, and students’
desire to learn them, we present
one classroom technique aimed at increasing students’ reading
skills but designed in such a way
that these skills might translate into better writing as well. We
expected students’ assignment
grades to improve over the course of the semester, and their
scores on a critical reading

1 Department of Psychology, Trinity Washington University,
125 Michigan Ave NE, Washington DC, 20017,
[email protected]
2 Department of Philosophy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University, 229 Major Williams Hall, Blacksburg, VA
24061, [email protected]
Van Camp, D. and Van Camp, W.
No. 1, February 2013. 87
josotl.indiana.edu
assessment to be significantly higher at post-semester testing
compared to their pre-semester
scores.
A. Description of the Problem.
There can be little doubt that reading is an essential component
of academia and accounts for a
large proportion of the learning that takes place (Pugh, Pawan,
& Antommarchi, 2000). Although
the ability to read and understand complex material is a key
predictor of college success, the
level of national literacy strongly suggests that students enter
college ill-prepared for college-
level reading (Lewin, 2005; U.S. Department of Education,
2005). Consequently, many colleges
and universities have implemented remedial education

programs, otherwise known as
developmental courses, designed to offer below-college level
instruction in foundational skills
such as mathematics, reading, and writing. These classes are
designed to ensure that incoming
students are given an opportunity to develop the skills in which
high school may have left them
deficient before moving on to more challenging college-level
classes. According to some reports,
as many as 40% of traditional undergraduates, and as many as
60% of community-college
students, take one remedial course while in college (Attewell,
Lavin, Domina, & Levey, 2006;
Bailey, Jeong, & Choo, 2010). Reading instruction has
historically been a key component of
remedial education (Boylan, 2003) and in recent years as many
as 13% of all college freshman
are enrolled in a developmental reading class (U.S. Department
of Education, 1996).
While some have begun to question the efficacy of remedial
education (Bailey, 2009;
Complete College America, 2012) this has not slowed the pace
of development of such courses,
or of state-wide developmental education initiatives (Smith,
2011). To some degree, these
remedial courses have been successful in achieving what they
set out to do, at least to the extent
that they help students achieve a level of reading and writing
competency that they should
ideally have reached upon graduating high-school. However,
beyond this fairly basic
remediation for the struggling students, which allows them to
move on to other classes, there is
little evidence that students are improving. Roksa and Arum
(2011) report that during the first

two years of college, students show very little real gain in their
critical thinking, analytical
reasoning, or writing skills. Therefore, despite the best efforts
of colleges to implement these
remedial and foundational classes it is clear that a number of
problems remain that may
contribute to the inadequacies noted by academics and
employers alike.
Not all colleges and universities offer the full range of these
remedial or foundational
courses. Reading in particular is a skill that college students are
assumed to have and therefore
many institutions do not teach reading to their students (Bosley,
2008). For those students
attending a college which does have such interventions and
programs, the typical college track
begins with remedial classes that they may require. Then they
may advance to foundational
college writing and reading classes, and subsequently to the rest
of the liberal arts curriculum and
classes in their chosen major. One problem with this framework
is that there may be a disconnect
between the remedial or foundational classes and the rest of the
student’s college classes. From a
student’s perspective this disconnect might be as simple as
perceiving the foundational reading
and writing classes as a chore - something they must pass in
order to move on. Similarly, these
classes may seem irrelevant to students in their content; indeed
critics of the remedial education
approach argue that because of the potential for students to
perceive remedial class content as
irrelevant, it is more effective to place then into subject area
classes as soon as possible and offer
extra co-requisite support rather than pre-requisite classes

(Complete College America, 2012).
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Perhaps more critically though, the type of reading and writing
students do in these courses is
often fundamentally different from that in other coursework.
For reading classes, this difference
is reflected in the types of text assigned, what students are
asked ‘to do’ when reading a text,
how their compliance with the assignment and comprehension
of the text are assessed, and so
forth.
These differences reflect the reality that there are different
kinds of reading for different
purposes. For example, most of the reading that students do in
high school is receptive reading -
that is reading for information (Biancarosa & Snow, 2006).
While this remains important in
college, there is a further expectation that students be able to
read in additional ways as well. For
example, at the heart of critical reading is that the reader is able
to identify what a text does, and
how. This then allows for a more active reader who makes
connections with and within the
material, therefore constructing new knowledge as they read
(El-Hindi, 1997). Reading-to-write
involves integrating the information with one’s own ideas in
order to produce novel written

material, and it is this type of reading that we most associate
with college level work (Flower,
Stein, Ackerman, Kantz, McCormick, & Peck, 1990).
Just as students may experience a disconnect between reading in
their classes and the rest
of the curriculum, faculty likewise often view these classes as
more distinct than perhaps they
should be. For example, reading classes are frequently taught by
reading specialists or by the
English department. Faculty members in other disciplines are
rarely involved in this instruction.
Furthermore, students are expected to take whatever remedial
classes are deemed necessary and
then be able to engage with the rest of the curriculum with no
further need of instruction,
reflecting the fact that explicit reading instruction is often
sidelined as remedial (Harkin, 2005),
even in literature classes (Bosley, 2008). This is problematic for
a number of reasons. First,
critical reading strategies require reinforcement through
continued practice (Nist & Holschuh,
2000; Pugh, Pawan, & Antommarchi, 2000). Most college
classes have the implicit and often
explicit expectation that students read, however without
continued feedback and guidance, they
may not be practicing the appropriate skills in the ways they
need to in order to be successful.
Second, how one reads depends on both the reason for reading,
the kind of text one is reading,
and its specific content. For example, why and how one reads a
short passage differs in important
ways from why and how one reads a textbook and this in turn
differs from an original source or
an empirical research article. Faculty may unintentionally
assume that the reading part of the

instruction was taken care of before the students enrolled in
their
psychology/economics/biology/etc. class. Students are expected
to move seamlessly from
reading prose passages in remedial/foundational classes to
reading textbooks for receptive
reading in general education classes and then transition into
upper-level classes and be able to
read original texts from a reading-to-write perspective (Flowers
et al., 1991), where it is expected
that they understand the texts enough to meet the challenge of
integrating them into a term paper
(Johns, 1997). Similarly, explicit instruction regarding how to
read the specific texts of their
chosen major is too frequently lacking. Because reading classes
are cross-disciplinary, students
are taught general reading skills using more generic sources;
however, there are often
idiosyncrasies to our disciplines with which perhaps we are not
adequately familiarizing our
students.
Many universities and colleges have bravely implemented
policies and curriculum
changes to address the deficiencies that students have when they
first arrive at their institutions.
We believe that the disconnect which we have outlined is not
one that should be addressed in
these foundational reading classes but rather by the disciplines
themselves. Similarly, it is

josotl.indiana.edu
important to acknowledge that there is wide variation in the
degree to which specific disciplines
already do this. Philosophy for example is far more likely to
assign students original texts and to
carefully and methodically teach students how to read these
texts. Likewise, English literature
classes certainly require students to read extensively and
perform literary analysis. However,
many disciplines, including the popular social sciences, rely
heavily on textbooks to disseminate
vast amounts of information to students and we suspect
instructors are less likely to assign
original texts or to assess reading specifically beyond testing
the learning of the content. The
assignment that we piloted, and describe in this paper, was
specifically designed to close this
gap.
B. Theoretical Background.
The series of assignments we describe involves reading original
psychology texts and identifying
their key components. We expected this to result in improved
comprehension and critical reading
skills - which we assess - but also lasting improvement in
writing skills - which we do not assess
in this paper. These expectations are informed by the literature
about how students learn and the
scholarship that emphasizes the link between reading and
writing.
The value of practice when learning and developing any skill is
well documented, in

particular the importance of extended and deliberate practice
(Ericsson, 2006). This applies to
academic skills such as reading and writing, which is a
significant reason why
remedial/foundational college courses are so reading and/or
writing-intensive. However, here
again is a disconnect: although everyone acknowledges the
importance of practice in foundation
classes, we often do not give our mid and upper-level students
adequate opportunities to practice
the kinds of reading and writing we expect from them. The
presumption is that once the basic
skills are formed this will generalize. However, much of what
we know about how humans learn
suggests in fact that successive approximations, feedback, and
practice at each step is a more
successful approach (Skinner, 1953; 1968). Similarly, the
principles of learning by modeling
(Bandura, 1962; 1973; 1977) suggest that if we want our
students to write well, specifically in
the style of their discipline, then one of the best ways they
might learn to do this is to be exposed
to models, i.e., to read the work of professionals in their field.
For example, many upper-level
psychology classes assign research papers or research proposals
that require students to write a
literature review. In addition to explaining to our students what
this means, and perhaps even
providing a few examples, much could be gained by increased
exposure to published psychology
papers. In an ideal world, our students are reading original texts
in order to write their term
papers; however, more realistically they are using textbooks and
finding summaries and online
sources for the same information. An assignment that forces
them to read these texts in full

provides the much needed opportunity for practice at reading
and gaining the associated benefits
to their writing through modeling. However, inherent within the
principle of modeling and social
learning theory is that the learner must pay attention to the
model in order to learn the skills
(Bandura, 1962; 1973; 1977). Providing students with an
assignment that is specifically designed
to make them read original sources and to pay attention to them
for more than just content should
encourage this attention.
Although we do not explicitly assess any improvements in the
students’ writing, the
benefits to their reading are expected to translate into better
writing. This reasoning is based on
the vast literature which demonstrates that reading and writing
are inextricably linked and are
most effectively taught as integrated processes (Bartholomae &
Petrosky, 1986; El-Hindi, 1997;
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Flower et al., 1991). This might be especially true of the
reading-to-write style of reading which
is so crucial to college success. If reading and writing are
crucial flip-sides of one another
(Downs, 2000), then it might be reasonably hypothesized that
activities which strengthen one
will tend to strengthen the other. However, it is important not to
allow another disconnect to

creep in by focusing on reading/writing without specific and
adequate consideration of how one
connects to the other. Therefore, in designing our reading
assignment, which was intended to
expose our students to discipline-specific models of writing, the
deficiencies that we had been
observing in the students’ writing guided the structure of the
assignment – that is, we asked
students to pay attention to the kinds of things we had noticed
they struggled to do in their own
writing when reading.
C. Details of the Assignment.
We designed an assignment with the specific purpose of helping
students learn how to read
original psychology texts. It was piloted in a mid-level social
psychology course. Instead of
using a traditional textbook for the class, the weekly readings
assigned were original psychology
texts that related to that week’s topic, for example: The Self and
Social Behavior in Differing
Cultural Contexts (Triandis, 1989), Self-Esteem as an
Interpersonal Monitor: The Sociometer
Hypothesis (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995), and
Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual
Test Performance of African Americans (Steele & Aronson,
1995). Each week the students
answered the following questions based on that week’s
readings: (1) In one sentence explain
what the reading does by using verbs like argue, demonstrate,
compare, describe, etc. (2) Identify
the thesis of the text. (3) List three main pieces of evidence or
arguments the authors use to
support their thesis. (4) Give the definition of two unfamiliar
words from the reading. (5) Write

one sentence that paraphrases the author’s idea and references it
in APA style. These tasks were
specifically designed to improve students’ reading
comprehension skills as well as those skills
that serve as the foundation of their critical reading skills: the
ability to recognize an author’s
purpose, to identify what the text does, and to understand
persuasive elements of the text
(Kurlund, 2000).
The students received a grade out of a maximum of 10 for each
weekly assignment.
However, grading was generous to encourage the students’
continued engagement and
motivation to complete the assignments. For example,
demonstrating that the text had been read
and completing all aspects of the assignment would result in
grade of seven, even if there were
some minor factual errors or errors in comprehension. A grade
of eight reflected the student’s
competency with the material with only minor mistakes. Grades
of nine and above indicated
mastery of the material, no mistakes, as well as a sophisticated
level of understanding (for a 10).
Some students did sometimes earn a five or six for poor or
incomplete work. Therefore, while
technically the grading scale was from 1-10, in practice,
students’ grades ranged from 5-10.
Specific feedback was provided to each student to encourage
improvement throughout the
semester. In addition, during most weeks, the class examined
the text as a group and the
instructor was able to help provide guidance for how to read the
text, including offering
strategies for reading challenging texts and techniques for
identifying the thesis, evidence, and so

forth. This takes a co-requisite approach by providing built in
support for basic skills in the
context of a traditional content based class (Complete College
America, 2012).
josotl.indiana.edu
II. Method.
A. Participants.
Participants were thirty female students enrolled in a Self and
Identity course at a small
comprehensive university in Washington, DC. Twenty-six
students completed the pre-test,
twenty-seven completed the post-test, and twenty-three students
completed both. The majority of
students were either juniors (n=13) or seniors (n=9). There were
some sophomores (n=7) and
there was only one freshman. On average, the students had
taken 68 credit hours (approximately
22 classes) previous to the semester in which they enrolled in
Self and Identity. All students had
taken Introductory Psychology as it was a prerequisite for Self
and Identity, but most had taken
many more psychology and sociology classes. In addition, all
students had taken critical reading
and foundational writing classes in their freshman year.

B. Procedure.
The first author taught the class in the spring of 2012. It was a
200 level (mid-level) social
psychology class that explored self and identity issues including
the ways in which we come to
know and understand ourselves, biases in processing self-
related information, the content,
structure, organization and function of the self, and the ways in
which our membership to social
groups (race, gender, religion, etc.) contribute to our sense of
self. Twenty-percent of the
students’ overall grade came from completing the weekly
reading assignment. To examine
whether the students’ critical reading ability improved due to
these assignments, students
completed a pre and post-test of critical reading skills based on
readings that were unrelated to
the course content.
C. Materials.
Pre and post-test. During the first and the last class period of
the semester, students were
assigned a short reading and answered multiple-choice
comprehension questions based on the
reading’s content. The readings were both from the Taking
Sides book series and were selected
to match in approximate length and technicality. Neither
reading related to the content of the
course. The pre-test reading was from Barkley’s (2007)
International Consensus Statement on
ADHD and the post-test reading was from Brizendine’s (2009)
The Female Brain. The
comprehension questions were modeled after the GRE’s critical

reading questions. The questions
asked students to identify the main point of the passage,
indicate with which a number of
statements the authors would agree, what might be inferred from
the passage, why authors
mention specific facts/make certain comparisons, the meaning
of key terms, and what the aim of
the passage was. The questions were designed to be moderately
challenging for all students. The
second author developed all of the pre and post-test questions
and does not know the students,
had no contact with their work, and was not familiar with the
content of the class.
Weekly reading assignment. The syllabus explained to students
that one of the objectives
of the class was to become comfortable with reading original
source psychology texts and that to
facilitate this skill they would complete weekly readings and
associated weekly reading
assignments that were to be turned in to the professor as a hard
copy in class. The format for
these assignments was the same each week and the specific
requirements are described above.
josotl.indiana.edu
Student evaluations. Students completed a survey following
completion of the course that
asked them how valuable they found the assignment and the

class generally for improving their
reading comprehension, critical reading, and writing skills.
Three questions asked how much the
class helped students examine and interpret a written text, and
present ideas effectively in writing
(see Table 1); these were taken from the standard class
evaluation used by the university with
response scales of 1=not at all to 4=very much. Additional
questions asked students to compare
the Self and Identity class to other classes they have taken (see
Table 1). Students responded to
these questions on a scale of 1=much less than other classes to
9=much more than other classes.
Finally, students were asked to comment in their own words on
the weekly reading assignment.
III. Results.
The class average from the pre to post-test showed a
statistically significant improvement in
reading skills t(22) = -4.32, p < .001, d=.90. At the start of the
semester the average number of
multiple choice questions answered correctly was 8.04 out of a
possible 12 (SD = 2.23) and at
the end of the semester the average number of multiple choice
questions answered correctly was
9.91 out of 12 (SD = 1.05). Of those students who completed
the pre-test 58% received what
could be considered a failing grade, i.e. less than 70%
(corresponding to a score of 8.4 out of 12)
with three students scoring as little as four or five out of 12. At
post-test this ‘failure rate’ was
reduced to just 15% and no student scored below an eight at
post-test.
Almost all students improved, and those who did not improve (n

= 2) or scored slightly
worse at post-test (n = 4) were those who initially performed at
the top; the four students who
performed worse at post-test than pre-test had pre-test scores of
at least 10 and remained at or
above 10 (out of a possible 12) at post-test. Examining those
students who scored at the lower
end at pre-test allows us to focus on the students in whom we
are particularly concerned about
effecting change. Among the 14 students who received what
could be considered a failing grade
at pre-test we see an overwhelming improvement t(13) = -9.18,
p < .001, d=2.45, from an
average of 6.64 out of 12 (SD = 1.45) at pre-test to an average
of 9.82 out of 12 (SD = 1.20) at
post-test.
The students’ improvement might also be reflected in an
increase in their weekly reading
assignment grades. Figure 1 illustrates the average weekly grade
of those students who
completed the assignment, which was most of the class. The
average grade for the first week’s
assignment is somewhat inflated by the fact that it was liberally
graded as the first assignment
while students were familiarizing themselves with the
professor’s requirements and expectations.
This was expressed to students, and they were aware, that they
‘got off lightly’ the first week.
After this first week, every effort was made to remain consistent
in grading the assignment so
that any increase in grade reflects an improvement in the
students’ skills. Therefore, if we do not
consider the first week, we see a gradual increase in grades over
the course of the semester that
then plateaus and settles at an average in the mid to upper eight

range until the end of the
semester when the class average drops again. This drop might
be a reflection of the end of the
semester pressure and so forth. In addition, week 10 involved
in-class group presentations so it is
likely that students were focusing less on the readings than
usual. Overall, the pattern does seem
to suggest a steady increase.
Additional evidence for the potential efficacy of the
assignments is the degree of student
compliance in completing the assignments. There were eleven
assignments across the semester
and the majority (57%) of the students completed all of them, a
further 21% only missed one
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assignment, and a further 11% only missed two, leaving a
minority of just 10% who missed three
or more. While this is not direct evidence of the assignment
effectiveness in terms of what it
teaches students, it does suggest a degree of engagement with
the assignments, which might be
taken as further support of their value.
Figure 1. Average class grade for the weekly reading
assignments over the course of the
semester

Finally, although students’ self-report responses to the course
evaluation survey should
not be taken as direct evidence for the efficacy of the
assignment, they can be viewed as
customer satisfaction data supporting the value of the
assignment. The students’ responses
suggest that they found the assignment to be helpful for their
reading skills as well as their
writing skills. The questions along with the mean response to
each are presented in Table 1.
Students indicated that the class was very helpful for the
reading skills of examining,
interpreting, and analyzing written texts as well as for the
writing skills of presenting ideas
effectively. The remaining questions asked students to compare
the class to others they have
taken in college, and asked specifically about the skills that the
assignment was designed to
develop. Student responses were all above 7 on the 10-point
scale suggesting that students felt
that the class was more helpful than other college classes at
developing these skills, in some
cases much more. Particularly notable are those items on which
students rated the class at eight
or above – helping them to understand original psychology
texts, identify thesis statements in
texts, and identify evidence in texts. These were all explicit
goals of the class, and in particular
the assignment, and the students’ responses suggest that they
felt satisfied that these goals were
met. Not surprisingly, ratings were higher for questions which
asked about reading skills
compared to those that asked about writing skills; the
assignment was fundamentally a reading

assignment, with the intended extra benefit of aiding students
writing, which these students’
responses suggest was successful.
7
7.5
8
8.5
9
9.5
10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

11
A
ve
ra
ge
c
la
ss
g
ra
de
Week
of
the
semester
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Table 1. Student responses to a survey evaluating the class on
key outcomes.
Thinking of your experience in Self and Identity, using a scale
from 1=not at all to

4=very much, to what extent did the course help you to do the
following:
Mean
SD
Examine a written text and make judgments about the value of
information
presented and assess the soundness of the author’s conclusions.
3.93 0.26
Interpret and analyze written text and understand how literary
devices such as imagery,
metaphor, or point of view contribute to the overall meaning
3.87 0.35
Present ideas and information clearly and effectively in writing.
3.87 0.35
For the following questions please think about Self and Identity
compared to other
classes you have taken at this university and respond using a
scale from 1=much
less to 9=much more.
Mean
SD

Compared to other classes how much did Self and Identity help
you understand original
psychology work / texts? 8.13 1.19
your critical reading
skills? 7.87 2.13
you identify thesis
statements in texts? 8.00 2.34
you identify evidence in
texts? 8.20 2.08
you learn how to
summarize an idea for referencing in a paper? 7.60 2.23
develop your vocabulary
- particularly your psychology vocabulary?
7.36 2.34
your ability to WRITE
strong thesis statements?
7.27 2.28
papers in the style of the discipline of psychology?

7.13 2.26
papers that incorporate evidence to support a thesis?
7.20 2.24
In addition to the survey questions, students were also asked to
comment in their own
words on their experience with the weekly assignments, these
responses indicated that the
students found the assignments helpful in developing their
reading and writing skills, for
example:
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“I think . . identifying thesis and finding supportive evidence
weekly encouraged
the students to feel comfortable in doing such on their own and
in other classes if
and when needed.”
“I felt that the weekly reading assignments really helped me to
understand the
text and understand other text in different classes. I feel that in
order to do my
papers I will ask myself those questions to help me pull out key

elements.”
“The weekly reading assignment really helped my vocabulary
and finding
evidence in texts to support the thesis!”
“The weekly reading assignments were challenging but
extremely effective. My
skills in both reading and writing have improved since taking
this course.”
“The weekly reading assignments will help me improve my
reading and critical
thinking skills when it comes to reading and analyzing lengthy
articles. It also
helped me sum articles up into paraphrases and be able to
provide evidence.”
“The weekly readings were very helpful. Having to do the
weekly readings I can
say has greatly improved my ability identifying the thesis and
evidence. Also
helped with learning the correct way to cite without penalty but
helping
understand why and how it's suppose to be. I think these
assignments sometimes
are not met with enjoyment by students weekly but it is helpful
and does what it
sets out to do; improve students’ ability to analyze and interpret
effectively”
IV. Discussion and Conclusion.
The skill of reading is a critically important skill in itself, and
as the flip-side of good writing it is
an essential cornerstone of a successful college career. Beyond

this, employers want graduates,
in particular liberal arts graduates, to come to them with this
skill set already developed.
However, students, employers, and academics alike recognize
that this skill is not as well
developed as it should or could be. This paper presents the
outcome assessment of an
assignment piloted in a psychology course that was designed to
allow students to learn and
practice how to effectively read original psychology texts. The
evidence suggests that the
assignment was indeed successful in its goal. There was a
significant improvement in the
students’ reading skills at the end of the semester, and
particularly notable improvements were
observed in those students who were seen to be struggling at the
start of the semester.
Furthermore, students themselves expressed that the assignment
was very helpful in developing a
number of reading and writing skills, providing further evidence
of the value of this assignment.
It is critical that only one of the students in this pilot class was
a freshman, and that many
students were in their junior or senior year. These students have
successfully completed the
foundational reading/writing classes and so according to the
stated goals of these classes in
theory should have the college level skills needed for academic
success. However, their pre-test
scores suggest that the reading skills they developed and honed
in these foundational courses
have not translated into more discipline specific classes. If our
students had been freshman, then
the significant improvement we saw might have been
attributable to other classes that they were
taking concurrently (e.g., the foundational reading/writing

classes); however, this was not the
case. Likewise, most of the students had taken many classes
before this one, including
psychology classes, and yet the pre-test scores suggest that
while they may be learning important
josotl.indiana.edu
content in these classes they may not have received adequate
guidance in reading within their
discipline. Similarly, as upper-level, primarily social science,
students, these students are
enrolled in classes that require them to write term papers that
include a thesis and provide
evidence by integrating original sources; the pre-test scores
suggest that the students would
struggle to do this. Finally, it is important to note that both the
pre and post-test were multiple-
choice and therefore objective and not subject to experimenter
bias suggesting a real
improvement in skills. Unfortunately, we cannot say whether
this improvement is enduring.
However, we believe that if students continue to have the
opportunity to practice these reading
skills then they will strengthen and persist throughout their
college careers and into the
workplace.
There are a number of limitations and important suggestions for
future work that should

be acknowledged. First, this assignment was specifically
designed for, tailored to, and piloted in
a psychology course. We encourage scholars and practitioners
in other disciplines to reflect on
the need for similar interventions. The precise details of the
assignment will, and should, vary
across subject area but we suspect that the principle of
modeling and guided practice would
apply to all disciplines. However, it is important to adhere to
the principle of discipline-specific
modeling and with that in mind realize that this precise
assignment in its current form might not
be applicable to a non-psychology course. Indeed, these kinds
of assignments cannot be cross-
disciplinary if they are to be successful, but rather should be
focused on discipline-specific
training. Second, as with most empirical research, our results
should be generalized with caution.
The specifics of the university and its students may make this
assignment particularly effective;
however, the deficit in reading/writing skills in students is
certainly widely noted so it is likely
that some form of this assignment would be valuable in many
universities. Similarly, the
relatively small and heterogeneous sample that we used means
that systematic or conceptual
replication would improve the external validity of our findings.
Third, while all efforts were
made to ensure that the pre and post-test readings and questions
were equivalent, they were
different and it is therefore possible that students simply found
the second reading and questions
to be easier. Finally, as already noted, it is not possible to say
whether the improvements that we
witnessed are enduring ones, nor did we assess whether there
was the associated improvement in

students writing. Future studies should assess both of these
possibilities.
This paper described the details of an assignment born of the
observation that our
students struggle to write. Specifically, they struggle to form
thesis statements and provide
supporting evidence. The logical and empirical link between
writing and reading (Bartholomae
& Petrosky, 1986; El-Hindi, 1997; Flower et al., 1991), as well
as known principles of learning
(Bandura, 1962; 1973; 1977; Ericsson, 2006), suggested an
intervention that would help students
with these skills. This intervention provided students with
models of good discipline-specific
writing along with a required assignment that was designed to
help guide the students in how to
read, prompting them to pay particular attention to those aspects
observed to be lacking in their
own writing. The specific instructions for how to read these
texts allowed for learning through
deliberate and ongoing practice (Nist & Holschuh, 2000; Pugh,
Pawan, & Antommarchi, 2000).
A variety of evidence suggests the efficacy of this assignment
for all students, in particular those
most in need of it. This success supports the suggestion that
foundational skills can be taught
successfully as a co-requisite skills rather than as a pre-
requisite class (Complete College
America, 2012). Furthermore, the improvement in the students’
skills is in keeping with research
that suggests the utility of deliberate and ongoing practice (Nist
& Holschuh, 2000; Pugh,
Pawan, & Antommarchi, 2000) and the importance of ongoing
feedback (Skinner, 1953; 1968).

josotl.indiana.edu
In an increasingly competitive job market, it is crucial that we
equip our graduates with all the
soft skills a college education is expected to afford them. It is
our responsibility as educators to
acknowledge the shortcomings of our current education system
and envision new ways that we
might address them. Our assignment is just one such effort, and
we hope that others consider
adopting techniques with similar principles.
References
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evidence on college remediation.
Journal of Higher Education, 77, 886–924.
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