You want your students to understand what they’ve read. Typically, they demonstrate that understanding by listing the chapter’s five or ten critical points. The only problem is that summarizing what they’ve read is a predominantly intellectual exercise.
Reading is emotional too. Your students won’t understand what they’ve read if they don’t find an emotional connection to what they’ve read. Sometimes that connection is as simple as, “I want to do well on this upcoming quiz, and I have to know this material to do well.” For more challenging material, the emotional connection will be more complex.
If your students don’t like a piece of writing, they’ll tend to say, “This was boring.” They’re commenting on the emotional quotient of a piece of writing. They may understand that the material is essential but don’t feel its importance.
Encourage them to do two things:
- Reflect on the writing that engages them. What emotions does it make them feel? This is particularly important if your students read writing like the kind of writing you want them to produce. Students assume that the only way to connect emotionally with something they’ve read is if there’s a direct connection between the content and their lives (e.g., a textbook chapter on the human heart means something to a student whose dad just had a triple bypass). They should pay attention to moments where they’re engaged even though the topic has no immediate application or connection to their lives. The writing is working well if they feel something vital about what they’re reading beyond simple identification.
- Intentionally build connections. When I have students complete reading notebook entries, they must reflect on a connection between what they’ve read and what they feel. Many times, students don’t have an intuitive answer to this prompt. They have to think about it. The result, however, is that they end up finding deeper and longer-lasting connections than anything that immediately came to their mind as they read. By asking students to connect to the material, you’re giving them another way of spending more time with what they’ve read. This will, in turn, give you more examples when you’re showing students what good writing in your discipline looks like.