Reading as Subject Matter in a Literature Survey
Keywords:
Teaching Reading, Student confidence, Meta-cognitive, Literature SurveyAbstract
This study compares two sections of a sophomore level British literature survey, one taught with the traditional aims of covering a body of literature, and one with additional theoretical and metacognitive materials. I set out to discover the value of removing some content from the survey in favour of lasting benefits for the students’ confidence and ability reading literary texts. Students’ confidence did improve as questionnaires demonstrate, as did the depth of their responses on qualitative measures such as journals and essays. Teaching students to take stock of their own reading practices and focus on the process of reading resulted in higher grades, higher levels of reported confidence in approaching new texts, and more productive engagement with the texts assigned for class.
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