Getting Started
College reading is active reading. Your instructors expect you to do far more than recognize the words on the page. They want you to read their assignments critically and then to think and write critically about what you have read. Many offer pointers about readings: they want to help you find a trail through the text so you won’t get lost as you read.
- If you know the old tale of Hansel and Gretel, you’ll recall those resourceful children who dropped crumbs as they walked so that they could retrace their steps through the deep, dark woods. If so, you are interacting with this book, bringing to it your memories and experience. You won’t stop to puzzle over woods, trails, and crumbs. You’ll just keep reading.
- If you have never met Hansel and Gretel, you may have to stop and puzzle out how they might connect to the reading process.
Many readers — even college professors — feel lost when they begin complex texts about something new. However, experienced critical readers hike through the intellectual woods with confidence because they know how to use many reading strategies. You can learn and practice such strategies, too, following the trail of bread crumbs left by other writers and dropping them for your readers as well.
