College-level Reading Tips for Multilingual Learners

Need help with critical reading? Worried about the depth of social and cultural knowledge
required to read texts in college? Want to learn some effective strategies for previewing and
annotating texts? Are you interested in learning to read deeply and effectively by asking the best
possible critical questions and using online reading tools?
In response to these questions, you can adopt the following practices as a student here at
Transylvania. Take time to read each carefully and then give it a try!
Before you read a text (Previewing)

Scan the text: Maimon et al explain that before you start reading a text look over the
information about the author and publication, quickly scanning its contents to gain a
sense of its context, purpose, and meaning (28). In other words, look at who wrote the
text and ask yourself, What kind of writing does this author produce? Novels? Histories?
Poetry? Essays? Knowing the genre of the text will help you understand what the
author is trying to do for youtell a story, entertain, persuade, inform, describe, etc.

Assess the work ahead: look at the table of contents and figure out the length of the
chapters. How much time will you need to complete each chapter? Which online and
print resources might you need? When you answer these questions, build your plan
including deadlines and goalsfor completing the reading directly into your schedule or
calendar.

Look for clues about the values of the author: look at the title and the first few pages of
the text. What do you think motivated the author to write the text? Why did the author
choose the specific genre in which the text is written? Does the author want entertain,
inform, interpret, argue, or accomplish something else? The answers to these questions
will help you understand the purpose of the author and the potential of the text to answer
questions in ways specific to the genre of the text. For example, a novel answers
questions and presents conflicts or problems in ways that differ from an essay. Right?

Consider the audience: read the title page, the back page, and a few of the paragraphs
in each chapter. To whom is the author writing? To which age group? To what kind of
people? Where? Is the author writing to someone like you? Somebody else? Why? The
answers to these questions help you to understand the authors choicesrhetorical
moves like style, point of view, organization, tone, and structurein the text. You
discover why the author writes the way he or she does: to deliberately affect or influence
an audience in specific ways. For example, ask yourself if the author tries to entertain
and inform an academic audience, an intellectual audience interested in the texts
specific subject, a wide population of readers who enjoy literary fictionor all three. You
decide, working to understand how the author writes and the words on the pages in
order to gain access to and influence a specific audience.

Think about content: look at the title and first few pages of the text. What do they tell you
about the content of the text? Who is involved in the text? What are the major players or

characters or voices? What are the problems, issues, conflicts, and solutions presented
by the text? Is the publication current? Where and by whom was the text published?
Does the publisher have cultural, social, or political biases? (29) You might even find
the publishers website and read through some of the pages to answer these questions.

Write your ideas down: do not just think about these aspects of the text. In a notebook or
journaldigital or paper-basedwrite down your answers to the questions you
formulate as you preview. By keeping a record of your preview questions and thoughts,
you prepare yourself to be a more informed reader and a careful critic of the text.

Look for additional resources: many of the texts you read will have links to online or print
resources that will help you. You might find interviews with author of the text,
biographical information about the author, study guides for the text, or a website or blog
written by the author. Check these resources out to learn everything you can about the
author and text before you read it.

Avoid spoiler resources: in other words, stay away from publications like SparkNotes or
other materials that summarize or analyze texts for you. These kinds of resources dont
allow you to practice your own critical process, and they steal your chance to invent your
own arguments and views of texts. Also, you might be tempted to simply plagiarize these
resources. Never put yourself in such a compromising position.

As you read the text (Deep reading and annotation)

Read deeply and efficiently: you might not be able to read every single word of an
assigned textits a simple fact of language challenges and time constraints. But do not
use these limitations as excuses to avoid reading. Instead, read passages for key words,
terms, and phrases. Circle them and write annotations connected to them. For more on
annotations, see the entry below.

Develop your own organized system of annotation: there are many examples and
samples available to you online. Hunter College of the City University of New York offers
this sample. But remember, you must develop a style of your own that is clear and
organized. Why? Doing so allows you to both engage with the content of the text and to
identify the rhetorical moves the author is deliberately presenting through and in the text.

Ask strong critical questions: write your answers to these questions down on the margins
of the text and in your reading notebook. Here are few of the most important critical
questions to consider:
What is the authors stance, or attitude, toward the subject? Do you agree,
disagree, or have a different view? Why?
What is the authors voice and style? How can you describe the language
choices the author makes? For example, does the author seem objective and
descriptive? How so?
What assumptions does the writer make about the audience? What does the
author assume the audience already understands, believes, or thinks?

What is the writers primary purpose? Does the author want to persuade,
explain, describe, etc.? Does the author have more than one purpose? Why?
Does the text appeal to your emotions? What parts of the text affect you
emotionally? Why?
Is the text fair? Does it respect the audiences intelligence, beliefs, and
viewpoints?
Is the evidence strong? Does the evidence seem logical and accurate?
Is the text effective? Has the text changed your understanding of the subject
addressed? How so?

Use online tools: read to understand the text, especially cultural and historical references
and terms with which you are unfamiliar. Taking the time to research these references
and terms will allow you to understand the content of the text. Here are few of the many
available online tools:
BBC Learning: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/
A great resource for learning English-speaking culture from news
worldwide. This site includes resources--videos and text--to help you
understand culture and history. A good source to use when reading about
current events in your classes.
TED Talks: http://www.ted.com/talks/browse
This resource provides videos about important current issues in culture,
science, etc, given by leading experts in many fields of learning. Many of
the videos also have written transcripts that you can read as you
listen/watch the videos. Just look for the icon that says "View Interactive
Transcript" to find the text of the video.
Oxford Learners Dictionary:
http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/
These two online dictionaries are essential resources for you as a reader
in English. They provide clear, concise definitions and pronunciation
sound bites.
National Public Radio and Public Radio International: http://www.npr.org/
and http://www.pri.org/
These are news sources, like the BBC site. They, too, are searchable.
So, you can search for historical and cultural references that you find in
your reading for Transy courses. Often, these sites give you not just
written articles but videos and pod casts that will help you learn through
listening and watching (a welcome break from all the reading, right?). Use
these sites.

Wikipedia: https://www.wikipedia.org/
Notice that I save this one for the last. It should never be your first choice
for a reading tool. Why? Because often the information in the articles
here is not accurate, reliable, or valid. So, don't just trust what you find
here. Instead, look at the bottom of each article at the sources cited and
the external links. These might be good choices for helping you
understand cultural and historical references in your reading.
After reading the text

Re-read: one-time reading experiences are a good start, but you must return to the text
several times, especially focusing on the sections you think are the crucial. Reviewing
and re-reading in this way helps you to remember what you have read and to make
further, important connections or develop questions that you can ask during lectures and
discussions about the text.

Write questions that you can ask during class discussions and lectures about the text:
always keep a list of questions from your reading that you can ask your instructor and
classmates during class. You can deepen your understanding of the text and
demonstrate your authentic participation in the conversation by asking such questions.

Compare your annotations with your lecture and discussion notes: find places in the text
on which class discussions and lectures focus. Check for anything you might have
missed or misunderstood in your reading of the text. Make further annotations,
especially marking the passages that the class has discussed or lectures include. These
are important passageswith concurrent ideasthat might appear on exams and are
crucial to your understanding the text.

Ask for help: schedule a time with your instructor to discuss the parts of the text that you
dont understand. Make sure that you have carefully read and annotated the text before
attending the meeting, and discuss your specific concerns (e.g. vocabulary, tone,
content, cultural references, etc.) Also, visit the Writing Center. For details on how to
make an appointment, see Taking Control of Learning on our shared blog.