Critical Reading in Higher Education Academic Goals and Social Engagement [Hardcover]

Faculty often worry that students cant or wont read critically, a foundational skill for success in academic and professional endeavors. Critical reading refers both to reading for academic purposes and reading for social engagement. This volume is based on collaborative, multidisciplinary research into how students read in first-year courses in subjects ranging from scientific literacy through composition. The authors discovered the good (students can read), the bad (students are not reading for social engagement), and the ugly (class assignments may be setting students up for failure) and they offer strategies that can better engage students and provide more meaningful reading experiences.

Foreword by Pat Hutchings
Preface
Introduction
1. Different Courses, Common Concern
2. Can Students Read? Comprehension, Analysis, Interpretation, and Evaluation
3. Critical Reading for Academic Purposes
4. Critical Reading for Social Engagement
5. So Now What?
Appendix One: Rubrics and Worksheets
Appendix Two: Taxonomy of Absence
Appendix Three: Coda on Collaboration

Offers an extensive examination of 'critical reading' in terms of what it is, how it is understood both by students and faculty from a range of disciplinary angles, how it is taught, and how it could be taught when informed by research. What is most valuable is the fact that the authors' conclusions are anchored in and derived from actual student reading activity. . . . An important contribution to scholarship.

Karen Manarin is Associate Professor of English at Mount Royal University.

Miriam Carey is Associate Professor of Policy Studies and in the Academic Development Centre at Mount Royal University.

Melanie Rathburn is Associate Professor of Biology and General Education at Mount Royal University.

Glen Ryland is Assistant Professor in the Department of General Education, Faculty of Teaching and Learning at Mount Royal University.