The CSU Institute for Teaching and Learning has recently called attention to the need for promoting Content Literacy throughout the university:

"... data from the 1994 administration of the U.S. National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed that 30 percent of the nation's high school seniors were reading at no better than a "basic" or literal level for their age. An adolescent who has successfully maneuvered high school curricula with "basic" or even "adequate" reading abilities is in for a rude awakening tackling the demanding day-to-day literacy load of full-time college coursework.

... neophyte college students typically experience a quantum leap in moving from the relatively brief and carefully explicated reading tasks of their high school classes to the conceptually and linguistically dense texts they must independently manage in their college coursework.

In spite of the fact that textbooks and supplemental readings continue to be the institutional mainstay of high school and college content classes, classroom experience and educational research suggest most students do not know how to learn effectively from expository texts.... Although most undergraduate and graduate students do certainly have general reading proficiency, many enter college classes equipped with an impovrished repertoire of strategic reading behaviors for learning from material in distinct disciplines ... few [are] content literate.

...With regard to academic reading, a student who is content literate has a heightened awareness and use of the organization and structure of distinct texts in diverse fields of study, and knows how to read in strategic ways to obtain important knowledge from them. This strategic reader knows, for example, the value of doing an initial preview of a research article, in order to become familiar with the focus, scope, general findings, length, and level of complexity of the material, before doing a more thorough analytical reading....

A less informed and strategic reader, on the contrary, is apt to approach diverse texts in a generic fashion, covering the assigned pages once, with limited comprehension and recall, perhaps highlighting yet neglecting to consolidate the information in some form of manageable and meaningful study notes. This underprepared reader is also likely to cling to a single inefficient and ineffective method of chapter previewing or reviewing, regardless of the actual assignment demands or subject area.

Furthermore, students lacking content literacy frequently exhibit passive and dependent learner behavior, avoid assigned reading, and rely upon peer tutors or class lectures to access needed information from texts."

The problem of reading is particularly acute in California where, according to the state's Department of Education, 11th graders scored only at the 40th percentile in a test of basic skills administered nation-wide. This sample did not include students not fluent in English. The relevance is obvious for California's public universities that draw their students from this pool of under-achieving readers.

For this course it is absolutely essential that you read effectively and are therefore content literate. The skills that you will use can be applied to other courses and are crucial to your job performance after graduation.

What strategies can you utilize to develop content literacy specific readings assigned for this course?

1. In line with the above quotation, be aware of the organization and structure of your text as you read each chapter or assignment for the first time. Findley-Rothney, The Twentieth Century World always begins with an introduction which lays out what subject matter and questions the subsequent parts of the chapter are going to address. E.g. In Chapter 1, pgs. 3-4, four themes are specified. Keep these in mind as you first preview the chapter in order to become familiar with its focus, scope and evidence.

2. Next re-read the chapter section by section, relating what you are reading to the questions and intent of the authors as laid out in the introduction. Read one section (sections are identified by boldface type) at a time and before you go on to the next section, ask yourself what you have just read and how it relates to the section heading which is always in bold-face type. If the section has posed questions, make sure you can answer them before you go on to the next question. Can you run through the subject matter of the section in your head? If you can't then you need to go back, concentrate, and read it again. If there are no questions posed, pose some yourself.

3. Go on to the next section and do the same thing.

4. When you have finished reading the chapter a second time in this manner, read over the conclusion that comes at the end of each chapter. If there are questions posed, can you answer them? Can you follow the conclusion, summoning up evidence from the chapter you have just read, to substantiate it?

5. Always pay attention to words that are printed in bold-face type or italicized. If things are numbered, pay attention. Why are they numbered? If there are tables, maps, charts or photographs, pay attention! These items take up a lot of space on a page and the authors would not have done this unless they wanted to emphasize something. Ask yourself what a particular graphic is intended to emphasize.

6. If the text indicates that something is "not" this way, but "is that way," pay attention, the authors are trying to tell you that what might be assumed, or is "common knowledge" is not the way things are. This kind of material makes for ideal multiple-choice questions.

7. The quizzes are designed to help you assess how effectively you are reading for content. Look over the quiz analyses on the website, but if your scores are below average, then by all means come into my office to look at the questions themselves and try and analyze yourself why your content reading is not adequate.