How to Use This Guide

This document is intended to highlight resources that can be used to address the topic of Reading in Academia in a First-Year Writing Course.  All resources are Open Access and can be downloaded or added to a Course Management System via hyperlink.

Introduction

This portion of the course stresses college-level reading. It will focus on three areas in particular: 1) Preparedness – how college reading may differ from high school reading; 2) Reading Strategies – how to choose, evaluate, and interact with texts; 3) Reading into Writing – how to make notes, summarize, paraphrase, and use what you are reading in an ethical manner. These skills will overlap with other learning objectives (e.g. Writing in Academia, Rhetorical Situations, etc.), and instructors will likely want to use these resources and design activities in conjunction with other learning objectives. Further, this module assumes that instructors have chosen their own primary reading (essays, literature, etc.) to which the strategies outlined in these resources may be applied.

Learning Objectives

This module is designed to address the following learning objectives

1. Determine an author’s purpose in writing
2. Identify reasons and evidence that support an author’s argument
3. Distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources
4. Practice effective annotation and note-taking techniques
5. Identify words or phrases that suggest an author’s bias
6. Recognize appeals to logos, pathos, and/or ethos
7. Understand ethical methods of paraphrasing and summarizing a source