Completing Assigned Readings

Several of the Business &Technical Writing courses have assigned readings which help frame the course. Students generally need to have structured assignments and incentives to help them complete the readings in a careful manner. Below are some strategies that have worked well.

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Team Work

Once the class roster is set, teams of students can be created to present the readings which will be assigned. The number of readings to be assigned will determine the number of teams to set up. Assume, for example, that there will be four readings and the class has twenty students. Create four teams of five members each (Teams A, B, C, D). Then, proceed like this:

• Advise students that their work on the readings will be graded. This also needs to be noted on your "Course Assignments" list for the course. The grade will be a relatively small percentage of the semester's work, but it does focus attention on the importance of doing what is to be assigned.
  
  
• Assign one team (say, Team A) the responsibility of leading the discussion. Provide some general guidelines about what should be covered. During the discussion, each team member must contribute in fairly equal amounts.
  
  
• Assign members of the other teams (in this example, Teams B, C, and D) to create questions to ask about the reading -- at least one question per member. Give index cards for the questions, advising the teams that the cards will be collected at the start of the class.
  
  
• On the class date set for discussion, give the teams 10-15 minutes to sit together to prepare. Team A will have to set up an order for presenting the reading: Summary, key terms, unique concepts, connections to the course's purpose are the typical categories. Teams B, C, and D will go through their questions and order them by what they judge to be "importance" for the reading. After the preparation time, let the discussion go on.
  
  
• The instructor should avoid interrupting or "saving" the discussion. Instead, the instructor acts as the moderator -- keeping track of time, moving students from Team A's presentation to the questioning time. During the questioning, if Team A can't give or weakly gives a response, the instructor can invite other teams to comment. That's where real discussion usually takes place.
  
  
• Once finished (Thirty minutes will be plenty of time), the instructor can put some notes on the board to summarize the discussion. Then, any key concepts or terms, unanswered or inaccurately answered questions, and final points the instructor hoped would be addressed can be addressed.
  
  
• Repeat the process with subsequent readings, assigning different teams to lead the discussion.

This activity has is useful because students tend to do the assigned readings, come to class prepared for discussion, and see that their opinions are valued (so long as the instructor can avoid taking over the discussion). For the instructor, the small amount of record keeping needed is well worth the effort since it greatly relieves the frustration of having students sitting with heads down, leafing through the pages, hoping the instructor will give a "lecture" on the reading, instead of actively engaging in discussion.

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Reading Response Form

A fairly uncomplicated way to get students to do assigned readings is to have an accompanying response form for each reading. Using a few (4 or 5) items, instructors can ensure that students can:

• Summarize the reading in one paragraph (75ish words). This requires individual writing which the instructor can read to determine how well given students have grasped some key idea in the reading.
  
  
• Define key terms in their own words
  
  
• Make a connection to another reading or to some prior class discussion
  
  
• Pose a question or two that would be worth raising during class discussion.

The forms are easy to develop and very useful since they enable students to arrive in class prepared to engage in focused discussion. To work effectively, students must complete the response form in duplicate. One copy is submitted at the start of class (It can even be used as an attendance record for the class). The other copy can be used for students to refer to during large or small group discussion of the reading.

Advise students that their response form will be graded. This also needs to be noted on your "Course Assignments" list for the course. The grade will be a relatively small percentage of the semester's work, but it does focus attention on the importance of doing what is to be assigned.

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