Recently I have had a few students who felt a little overwhelmed by the books I had assigned them to read.    Today I would like to give some pointers on how to successfully navigate these more difficult books. In addition, my classes are starting projects that will have them to reading scientific journals while they do research for upcoming projects. Dreaming Spires Biology class is currently reading The Hot Zone by Richard Preston and will be doing an investigation into what bacteria or virus is a concern in their area (we have students all over the world), they then will research how that pathogen is transmitted and ways that infection can be prevented. The final project will be a public service announcement about diseases and preventing their spread.  With this in mind, I wanted to review some steps for analytical reading and how to understand and navigate more complex reading assignments and journal.  The following podcast is the result. 😊. 

In summary, reread a previous section to make sure you didn’t miss a meaning cue. Look for examples when the author is talking about concept you are unfamiliar with. Take a few minutes to look up a word or idea that may not be familiar to you to better understand what the author is saying.  Lastly, don’t be afraid to write in your books. Underline names and circle important info associated with the name or briefly add a short recap, question or thought in the margins or on sticky notes to attach to the page.  If you are reading an eBook of some sort, keep a notebook handy for these same practices.

The following resources were used for this podcast and note:

OEDb (2006-2019) Your Brain on Books: 10 Things that happen to our Minds when we read, retrieved from: https://oedb.org/ilibrarian/your-brain-on-books-10-things-that-happen-to-our-minds-when-we-read/

A. Peterman, (2019, Mar 29) How to Understand the Book You Are Reading. Retrieved from: https://www.wikihow.com/Understand-the-Book-You-Are-Reading 

L.K. Wheeler (1998-2016) CLOSE Reading of Literary passage retrieved from: http://www.bunpeiris.org/close-reading-1/

Music from https://filmmusic.io
“Total Happy Up And Sunny” by Sascha Ende (https://www.sascha-ende.de)
License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)