You might think that reading ahead can only be positive. By knowing in advance what you’re meant to read, why shouldn’t you just read it now?
Erin E. Templeton writes in ProfHacker, “the act of reading ahead is often exceptionally damaging to our work together in the classroom”.
Templeton, an English professor, notes that many students read ahead just to get it out of the way. Instead of engaging academically, the aim is to finish the task of reading as if that’s what matters.
What are your reasons for reading ahead? If it’s just another box ticking exercise to get another activity off your to-do list, you may be doing yourself a disservice. More than that, Templeton argues, you may be doing the whole class a disservice.
Your reasons are important. I loved reading ahead, even before I went to university. I wanted to get the initial reading and course texts understood in advance, because I knew there’d be so much more to deal with upon hitting campus.
Anyone who has been through their first year at uni will know what I mean. Overwhelm isn’t exactly difficult as a Fresher. Due to this, I would always suggest that future students swot up in advance, even if they continue to remain in the dark over most of the concepts and arguments.
I loved reading ahead. I worried less about confusing content, because I knew that lectures, seminars and tutorials would deliver clarity where I needed it. I would come armed with questions and specific goals. I was prepared to revisit the text and discover more.
This type of reading ahead is not what concerns Templeton. Unfortunately, this type of reading ahead isn’t common in Templeton’s experience. What she sees is a type of reading that severely limits critical engagement with the text:
“The study of literature is…not only reading a certain selection of texts in a particular order. Instead, a good class takes the book list as a foundation and collaboratively generates an extended conversation through discussion and debate, analysis and critique. The themes and issues which emerge from our collective experience and conversation are not always (or even often) ones that can be predicted ahead of time. In fact, the best of these are ones that cannot be anticipated precisely because they arise organically from the confluence of time, place and participants.”
Reading ahead is clearly not a problem in itself. However, you must be prepared to ‘read again’ to give close and careful reading of the text.
Without a critical eye, you might as well be reading for enjoyment.
Enjoying what you read is fantastic. I always preferred reading something I could appreciate beyond cold and critical study.
Perhaps reading ahead is crucial, then. It may be the only effective way to bridge that gap between enjoyment and engagement when studying subjects like English. Consume the texts in advance for your own fun, then read again with deeper focus.
“Twenty years on from my graduation, it is upsetting that many of the barriers my generation faced are so prevalent for poorer youngsters today; that they are still so underrepresented in our top universities, and that those from privileged backgrounds retain their stranglehold on the professions. Just 7% of children are privately educated, yet they account for more than half of top doctors, judges and barristers.”
Oxford and Cambridge both conduct extensive outreach programmes, yet great difficulties remain in setting a more reasonable balance.
Nevertheless, the work goes on for staff at Oxbridge and they continue to face the challenge head-on. In most circumstances, it’s not for want of trying… Outreach is important; Oxbridge want to hear from engaged minds, no matter what their background and situation in life.
photo by deadstar 2.1
University College Oxford (also known as ‘Univ’) produces an Alternative Prospectus to help dispel fears and break down some of the barriers that exist for some students who would otherwise find a great place waiting for them. The guide, written and produced by current students, aims to give prospective students an idea of life at the college. It recently reached the finals of the Higher Education Liaison Officers’ Association (HELOA) Innovation and Best practice Awards 2010-11.
Anne-Marie Canning, Access Officer at Univ, kindly took some time out of her super busy outreach schedule to talk with me about the success of the Alternative Prospectus:
What first prompted you to design an ‘alternative’ to what was already on offer?
AMC: Alternative prospectuses are a bit of an Oxford tradition. Written by students for students they’ve been running for a few years. We’d had one at Univ for the past few years and we realized we kept running out of them before we ran out of our ‘normal’ prospectus. So we decided to reduce expenditure on our traditional formal prospectus and spend a little bit more on the alternative version. The alternative prospectus gives students more freedom to produce something really exciting. The students were really key in setting out what sort of publication they wanted to produce and we worked with a really imaginative designer to facilitate the project.
The alternative prospectus has a great feel as a newspaper. But how do you push the alternative side to those who prefer a more digital flavour?
AMC: We do have a PDF version of the alt prospectus available and we experimented with an e-reader but we found it to be fairly inaccessible and a bit buggy. You can see the new PDF is treated in a way that gives it an newspaper look. We also have a cool little tab on our Facebook page that loads up the lo-res PDF once you click it. It’s worth a little gander!
The ‘Univ guide to Oxford’ map is a great idea. Do you have any plans to make it an ongoing, interactive effort that can change and expand over the academic year?
AMC: The guide changes each year and we put a big map in the lodge with loads of pens and pins and people come and pop their favourite place. It’s not live but it does evolve and I really like the idea of keeping things nice and simple and lo-fi. I think on the ground engagement has a lot to be said for it rather than just having a techy solution. It also raised a lot of awareness and interest in the prospectus project amongst the student body. We obviously used lots of online media platforms to generate content though, so I think the answer is to use a mix of the two approaches.
How do current students and academics feel about the work you’re doing? Do you find them jumping in to help the cause?
AMC: I would say work that we’re doing rather than what I’m doing!
Current students drive much of the work we do here in college. Univ was the first college top set up an ambassador scheme which supports over 60 students in visiting schools in their home areas and volunteering on a variety of outreach projects. The ambassador scheme is a collaboration between the College and the Junior Common Room. Students are involved with e-mentoring, video-making, creating their own taster days and volunteer on a regular basis to welcome school groups to University College. But my favourite project is our Roadshow to South Yorkshire – 8 students go up to south Yorkshire and visit as many schools as possible in the space of four days to talk about the application process and what it is like to be a student at Oxford.
I think the fact that our tutors were willing to submit photos of themselves as teenagers for our alternative prospectus shows just how involved they are! Our outreach plans are made in conjunction with fellows of the College. They go and visit schools themselves and are really pivotal in offering a variety of subject taster days and our teachers’ conference and open days.
Is the alternative prospectus a hit with high-performing students who wouldn’t usually consider Oxford?
AMC: The alternative prospectus is enjoyed by all different sorts of applicants. I think giving an honest view from the ground is really appreciated by everyone. This year about 80% of applicants to University College said the alternative prospectus was invaluable in helping them to make their application choices.
Your “What is a tutorial?” page is useful, putting across an important aspect of the learning process at Oxford. How daunting do prospective students find new ways of learning, in your experience?
AMC: The teaching style at Oxford is unique. We don’t want people to apply to Oxford because we’re Oxford. We want people to apply because they love their subject and think the tutorial system would suit their learning style. Yes, it’s challenging but it’s also exhilarating. Here at University College we do a lot to support students in transitioning into university level study. We run a pre-sessional Maths week for all of our students in the sciences and maths subjects to consolidate their knowledge. We also team up 1st years with 2nd and 3rd year students via our study buddy scheme. The study buddies scheme gives first years a friendly face to ask any questions and get some advice related to their studies.
Does any one aspect of the prospectus outshine the others when students are choosing where to apply?
AMC: No, students would like information about all elements of the Oxford experience in my experience. Potential applicants want the full picture!
Higher education is going through a great deal of change right now. What type of changes, if any, do you envisage for future editions of the alternative prospectus?
AMC: I think we’ll respond to what our prospective applicants would like. We love our little newspaper but if people want something different then we’ll respond to their needs!
Finally, do you have any other words of wisdom or reassurance to high-grade students who aren’t entirely sure about applying to an Oxbridge college?
AMC: We’re looking for two things in our students. One is academic achievement and the other is passion for your subject. If you have those two things then give it a go! The only way to ensure you don’t get into Oxford is by not applying to Oxford. And if you don’t get an offer the chances are you’ll be going to another fantastic university (like York, my own university)!
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Anne-Marie also told me that Univ have just launched a stop motion tour of the college, so you can get an inside view of the place. I’ll leave you with the tour below. Remember, you saw it here first. 🙂
Worth noting is the range of useful articles The Guardian also published with the guide. Here are some of the pieces for hopeful students this year and next:
What every student should know – From the cost of textbook to the troubles of timetables, current students give the advice they wish they’d had when they started.
When tutors suggest you ‘read around’, what do they really mean? When you get a reading list with hundreds of books on it, where do you start?
photo by Valentina_A
Reading around covers a lot of ground and is important for undergraduate work:
“Reading will be a crucial element of your study in higher education…There is a much greater expectation and requirement, if you are to be successful, to read more independently and more widely than you may have previously.” Studying and Learning at University – Alan Pritchard (p28)
So, reading needs to be ‘independent’ and ‘wide’. Let’s go further:
“University work needs more than simple reproduction of facts. You need to be able to construct an argument and to support this with evidence. This means that you need to draw on the literature that you have read in order to support your position…What is important is to present a tight, well-argued case for the view you finally present as the one you favour.” The Smarter Student – Kathleen McMillan & Jonathan Weyers (p226)
What you say must be backed up. That’s where reading around comes in. Your aim isn’t to get a unique view on the world. That’s almost impossible. You need to refer to what’s already out there, which is why you can’t rely on a small number of sources unless you’re content with a bare pass (or worse).
Here’s what reading around does for you:
Reading around helps you fill in the missing gaps you didn’t realise were there;
Reading around lets you know the subject, rather than just the facts;
Reading around is like filling up a jar in stages. You start with big rocks of information. When the big rocks fill the jar, you can still put in small stones of detail that fall between the big rocks. When the small stones fill the jar, you can still put in fine sand of specifics to fill in the smallest, unclaimed areas in the jar.
How do you start reading around? Here are a few ways:
Read more than the key texts on reading lists – When tutors list ‘further reading’, ‘extra’ texts, or ‘suggested’ materials, they aren’t giving you anything that’s surplus to requirements. The purpose of further reading is so you can learn more, not to read more stuff you don’t need to know;
Highlight research that considers similar issues and explore their findings – You are discovering what has gone before. How have we reached where we are today? Is research still going on, or have we reached a dead end? What is influential and why?;
Don’t rely on textbooks alone – Read up online, in journals, in textbooks, in the news, and so on. Check for the most recent research going on, even if that means no more than a quick Google Scholar search for papers in the last year or two;
Find links between your subject and another field – If you stick to your subject alone, you can’t appreciate the bigger picture. How does your subject impact upon others and vice versa?;
Don’t think ‘answers’, think ‘questions’ – You’re finding what fits with your argument and how matters can move forward or be explored further. Research wouldn’t be necessary if we had all the answers;
Check bibliographies of the most useful books – When you find a corker of a book, or you rely heavily on a general textbook, the bibliography and references within can help in the same way a tutor’s reading list does.
Reading lists are detailed for a reason. For first years especially, they need to show variation, given that students will be coming from many backgrounds and with varying levels of understanding around the subject. You’re not expected to read everything from cover to cover. You’re not even expected to check every single title out. But you are expected to use the list to explore and make your own discoveries.
Some books will sing to you like beautiful music, while others relentlessly scream nonsense at you. If a book’s content confuses you, don’t despair. It doesn’t mean you don’t understand the subject; it means the book isn’t a good fit for you.
To get an idea of how a book or article speaks to you and if it’s important to your research, check out:
Chapter titles;
Abstracts;
Introductions;
Conclusions;
Headings/Sub-titles
Lists, activities, images & tables;
First & last paragraphs of chapters.
If certain texts aren’t available in your library, make reservations and remember to do some quick and easy online research about the book. You can often find a lot of content long before you get your hands on the text.
Whatever you’re studying, a lot of reading is involved. With so much out there, you may be stuck for a starting point. John Kay explains that there’s no point in making a specific plan at times like these. Just jump in:
“When faced with a task that daunts you, a project that you find difficult, begin by doing something. Choose a small component that seems potentially relevant to the task. While it seems to make sense to plan everything before you start, mostly you can’t: objectives are not clearly enough defined, the nature of the problem keeps shifting, it is too complex, and you lack sufficient information. The direct approach is simply impossible.” Obliquity: Why our goals are best achieved indirectly – John Kay (p175)
Kay’s point can be taken further. You may worry that you couldn’t possibly read everything. If you’re meant to read around, how can you do that when there are millions of potential reads?
The answer is to read enough and know when to stop.
How are you expected to know that? Well, there’s no magical answer to finding a time to stop. However, as you read around and research, there comes a time when your viewpoint is more confident and you have plenty quotations, references, similar views, and so on. At this point, it’s pretty safe to start.
If you need to go back later, then do it. Reading around doesn’t happen in one sitting. It’s an ongoing process throughout your degree.
Part of the reason why you’re given reading lists in the first place is so you can see what is already viewed as important in your field. You’ll see the big names, be introduced to the crucial concepts, be handed the most influential texts, and get an idea of what authors/books other academics have heavily referenced.
Reading around gives you a chance to be independent in your research, whilst being pointed in the right direction so you don’t veer too wildly off topic. There’s no trickery or punishment involved, even if you do feel overwhelmed at first.
As with most things, the more you practice, the more you’ll get into the swing of things.
What experiences have you had with ‘reading around’?
Erin E. Templeton writes in ProfHacker, “the act of reading ahead is often exceptionally damaging to our work together in the classroom”.
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