Could I get it too, Please?

bsky.app/profile/did:...

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Thanks so much, Andrea. This is great.

You're welcome. It's also fun :-)

Here you go! I'll write some new ones for this semester too. They loved them. The "read without your phone or screens in the room" was a revelation, and many of them decided to keep doing it. They had NO IDEA (& were horrified) how often they interrupt themselves to look at a phone for no reason.

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This is great!

Thanks!

That makes me really curious how students feel / what they notice abt reading while snacking! Ive been reading lots since I was ~8, so Ive done every combination imaginable & it's all reading to me lol. So I'm curious what it's like for ppl who don't read as much for fun 👀 If you're willing to share

The best things about the list is that students who try all or most of them find what makes reading best for them. Some are too distracted by food, others love adding it to reading. Some need white noise to focus, others always thought they did and are interested to find silence is better. Etc.

Oh that's really cool! Thank you for talking about this, it's genuingely so interesting to me 😊

Wow thank you for sharing

This is amazing!

Oh thank you!

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Thank you! So helpful for my new direction this year!

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This is fabulous! Thanks for sharing!

Thank you for sharing this — I'm going to try it (and add some!)

Just stumbled on this post via @rhiannonbookgeek.bsky.social and I love all the ideas. I do some of them already (read a chapter aloud) and others sound such fun. I'll be trying 'candlelight' and 're-read a chapter' first.

OMG I did one of these with an online class in 2017, and the responses were WILD! Students were mind-blown at how much better they could understand when they weren't connecting to the internet at the same time.

... Ran away from the academy not long after, so almost no teaching since then. I tell you if I hadn't already resigned, I would have resigned over the slop machines.

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These are fantastic—I've shared with my teaching colleagues and am looking forward to trying these with teaching, and just with my own reading as well. Thank you!

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This is brilliant. I have been looking for it without knowing that I was looking for it!

Thank you for sharing! These dovetail beautifully with an experiential reading journal ass't I have, and I'd love to borrow them for a class I'm teaching in the fall called "How to Read a Book," if that's ok with you?

Borrow away! I paired some purposefully (e.g. read by flashlight with a vampire novel), so you might think of others that work better with your syllabus. But take whatever of these you like!

Thank you so much!

Can you talk more about your plans?

Yes, would love to hear more!

We have 1st-yr seminars that are 2/3 how to do college, 1/3 dpt-specific. I'm revamping mine around how to read a bk b/c (in general) they don't do that in high school. In this case bk = novel. Haven't finalized anything yet, but I'm planning a combo of ... (1/3)

... experiential reflection/experiment of your kind, reading strategies (eg how to annotate), close rdg practice, & critical methods lite (how to read via genre, or like a postcolonial scholar, or like a feminist, or like a critic focused on intersection of lit & medicine). (2/3)

The idea is desperately old-fashioned: if you are in college, you should be able to read a book, & I will help you get there. It's also (I hope) a way to respond to where they are, with no idea of what college lit study looks like or can be, and thereby perhaps useful PR for us.

This is so beautiful. They get yelled at by Olds for not knowing how to do something they've never been taught to do. So many high schools refuse to teach whole books anymore (why bother when tests are all "interpret this short reading"?) I remember being TAUGHT how to take notecards, and annotate.

This all sounds wonderful. And I think the desperately old-fashioned is now new-fashioned, since it's skills they need and no one has thoroughly focused on in their 12yrs of schooling yet.

I'm thinking of doing something similar in my first-year history courses this fall but I'm afraid of doing it wrong 🙃

courage! and fwiw, I'm operating with 10 years of institutional knowledge and zero desire to teach my previous version of this course, so I'm very happy to gamble

I'm always for telling students that you're trying something experimental! They're usually pretty interested in why you make your pedagogical choices, and if they know it's an experiment they're less likely to care if something goes sideways.

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Thank you so much for this! This is why social media can be so fantastic. This really sparked my interest, & I even spoke about it to 2 colleagues this morning. This is such a great idea, & I will definitely be thinking about how to incorporate this - we shouldn’t have to, but this is where we are!

Thank you for all the different ideas in this thread.

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Thank you so much for sharing these!!!

Well as soon as I can find a QUIET library I can read actual BOOKS instead of having to read them on this tiny screen. “We are inclusive of everybody with an auditory processing disorder. Too bad their bodies react as though they’re being attacked”

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I just read for an hour with my phone out of reach on the charger, and it was magical. I’ll definitely try that again.

I love that you just did this!

this is amazing! Thank you for sharing, going to adopt some of these!

So glad to know it's helpful!

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Not a student but am going to try all these to see how they affect my experience. Thanks everyone for the discussion

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Incredible list! Amazing intervention 🙏 but … chat they are cooked 😰

Thank you. But I don't understand what you mean by the second part?

That they still need this much help with reading practices in college — a very good college! 😞 Needs must

Ah. Yes. SIgh. But I decided that rather than lament/rage, I should lean into this work—bc it turns out that when I focus on reading as pleasure, they actually read. A lot and well. So it's worth it. (One said to me, "I can't believe it took until my last semester of college to figure this out.")

One of the most rewarding things is when the reflection essays at the end of the semester say they've learned to like reading. But I wasn't doing something like this, and I think this could help even more!

When I was in junior high we had a class to start everyday, 30 minutes of reading whatever we wanted to read. When my kid was in public school they had a reading nook and no time to use it. kids could spend a few minutes there if they finished work early, but they were moved on for the next project

Considering a “dark academia” course theme where I just assign them like 6 Plato dialogues per class and then glare at them while smoking furiously

HA! I know someone who's been teaching a popular teaching a Dark Academia for a few semesters. Smoking and glaring would be a good addition to her syllabus, I think.

🤩 Hope her syllabus is just a 1-page list of 10 Great Books

HA

Ooh, I’ve been wanting to teach a Dark Academia course for years. Glad to hear someone else is paving the way.

This actually represents a not insignificant portion of my actual education (if you replace smoking with bourbon . . . . wait no, there was smoking too come to think of it).

Once you realized that it was at least a little performative, it kind of rocked. Felt traditional, y'know? We were both playing a part.

😂 I had them read Tess of the d'Urbervilles in a week over the summer last year. I've never been so cruel.

The only time I've ever taught that novel that it wasn't a soul-destrying tragedy that we could hardly get through was the semester I taught it in my nature writing class. It was fascinating what the reframing did to sustain us through its emotional worst.

We read it after Mansfield Park, Oliver Twist, and Jane Eyre, so we were emotionally prepared for the devastation. Everyone agreed that Angel is the worst person in Victorian fiction.

I have consistently managed to be teaching it during the absolute worst election weeks in my students' memory, which definitely doesn't help. Someday I will learn not to plan it for the beginning of November.

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Love this! I'd also like to see your instructions for the Reaction Journal.

We just talk about how to use them. I give out little paper-bound journals on day one, and we talk about what kinds of things might go in them (quotes, p#, reactions, predictions, sketches, etc). Once they've filled a two-page spread, they post a pic of it to discussion board.

An early writing assignment asks them to read through one week's worth of those posts and reflect on how their own use of the journal is similar to or different from other people's. They have to quote from at least 3 other people's work in the process so they really think about how to make notes.

I like this way of doing it. It's also a good excuse to introduce them to Steno Books which are the superior note-taking stationary option.

I love journaling on a Google document. I have a few years worth- one document for each year. You can add pictures, links, etc. The way I do it ends up being backwards, since I write at the top of the document, but it works for me.

I wonder if it's feasible to compare reading a chapter in a digital version and one in print? Like digitize a chapter or 2 for folks who normally read print books, and provide paper copies for those who use e-readers or a screen?

Oh this is a great idea! Thank you!

This is a great idea and I will add it. I offered to make paper photocopies of chapters I assigned from a text that was available as an ebook from our university library. Only 2 students out of 30 took me up on it. The rest preferred to read on screens. As a Gen X I can’t imagine choosing that

I feel the same way. I always want a paper book. I have found that most of them are looking for the cheapest possible copies, and often can find free online—but of course the reading experience suffers. I'm going to have them experiment with side-by-side paper and e-copies of something this term.

@garrt.bsky.social relevant to our convo about reading yesterday!

I love these! And I do many myself, without consciously thinking about it (especially fancy snacks/outdoor reading/reading in silence with friends)! 📌

Me too. I used to live reading in trees when I was a kid.

This is great! Thank you for sharing!

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Can I borrow...err...steal these?

📌 Thank you for sharing!