Travis Dalsis--Transitions of High School to College Readings

Claim: Most college students are not preparing by reading articles, chapters, and books for class. 

Students who were invested into reading practices were so for other purposes than college classes.

For the study:

1) Questionnaire
2) Reading journal
3) Interpreting Journals

What this article is mainly trying to expose is the lack of depth students are experiencing in their readership as college students.  It "urges faculty members and program administrators at [their] institution to think differently about reading in their courses.


What were the conclusions this article draws?

1) College students are reading, but not studiously as it relates to their courses.  They are using reading practices to pursue areas of deeper interest than those presented in the classroom.  Reading for the classroom was "uninspiring, painfully required, and dull."

2) Few students made text to self/world connections.  They didn't take time to think about the text as a social document speaking to them about their own lives and the innate implications it provides.

3) Texts that students interact with most are technology based.  "The majority of their time reading for pleasure is spent reading and writing emails, instant messaging, or creating and perusing Facebook and MySpace profiles."

Suggestions for faculty:

1) Explicity teach reading practices that engage reading with the kinds of texts college students are being required to read.  This is connected to the lack of support that the Common Core Standards are moving away from.  The METACOGNITIVE aspect of reading needs to be explicit in all levels.

2) Integrate technology to the reading experience for classes as well as technology that allows discussions to take place (Blackboard).


My personal commentary:  I am very intrigued by this article for a couple reasons.  One, it made me think of the connection with my last blog post regarding how we teach at the secondary level.  Also, it helps us to critically think about emergent tools that technology provides.  Literacy today is defined differently than it was 10 years ago.  Today, digital literacies and multi-modal literacies are very fascinating items to consider.

I also am intrigued by a recent TED Talk related to using interactive texts.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/shilo_shiv_suleman_using_tech_to_enable_dreaming.html

Check out the link if interested!