Reading in First-Year Seminars

Student crouches to look for a book from a library shelf

why and how to teach reading to first-year students

The transition from high school to college can challenge students’ reading skills. Some are overwhelmed by the quantity of texts assigned, some struggle to make sense of the range of genres, and some have little experience with dense, abstract, or esoteric writing. This module suggests ways to teach active reading strategies in a first-year seminar, a practice that many faculty find improves their students’ writing as a result.

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Additional Resources

For Faculty

Bean, John. Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning.  2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011. Chapter 9, "Helping Students Read Difficult Texts." 

Deep Reading: Teaching Reading in the Writing Classroom. Ed. Patrick Sullivan, Sheridan Blau, Howard Tinberg. National Council of Teachers of English, 2017.

Gottschalk, Katherine and Keith Hjortshoj. The Elements of Teaching Writing. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. "Strategies for Encouraging Effective Reading" (p. 123-31).

For Students

Graff, Gerald and Birkenstein, Kathy. They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. 4th ed. Norton, 2018. Chapters 1 and 2, "Starting with What Others are Saying" and "The Art of Summarizing."

Rosenberg, Karen. “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources.” in Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Vol. 2. Parlor Press, 2011.

Analytical Reading Strategies (Cassie Sánchez).

Versatile Reading (Cassie Sánchez)

Consultations on Reading Instruction

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Schedule a consultation with associates at the Writing Center to discuss this topic for your course. Write to us at writing@amherst.edu or contact a writing associate directly. This guide was written by Kristen Brookes with contributions from Emily Merriman and Jessica Kem. It was last updated June 2020.

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