Using e-book annotations to develop deep reading

In the course of conducting two SoTL studies on the benefits and challenges of using ebooks in place of paper books we have refined and are sharing a handful of best practices to enhance the development of critical reading. Critical reading has been the focus of a great deal of research (Collins, Brown & Holum, 1991; Handsfield & Jimenez, 2011), and some of this research has focused on the ways that annotation practices enhance critical reading skills (Hoff, Wehling & Rothkugel, 2009; Zywica & Gomez, 2008). Our approach is distinctive insofar as we combine apprenticeship and comprehension strategies immersed in the e-text environment as part of a semester-long effort at the collegiate level. Critical readers of primary texts have typical foundational goals: they aim to discover an author’s central message, thesis, or narrative. But critical readers also want more. For example, they pay attention to the genre of the text and what might be known about the author’s context. They aim to make sense of the author’s support, defense, and development of the central message. They also challenge the text, raising questions and objections not only about the truth of the central message, but also about the author’s argument in its defense. In the end, they see each text as part of a conversation in which their own reflections become new contributions to advance our collective understanding of the issues in question. Although we can explain what behaviors we expect of critical readers, the practice of critical reading is challenging to cultivate (Conley & Wise, 2011). The practice itself is typically carried out privately and individually. Critical readers outline, extract arguments, mark critical passages and important claims, and write out notes alongside the text that include their own observations, questions, objections, and commentary. To be sure: teachers can present the results of exemplary critical reading, but our challenge is to find a way to model the practice of critical reading and to design courses that provide opportunities for students to develop as apprentices in this practice (Collins, et al., 1991). Paper textbooks present obvious challenges to modeling and apprenticeship due to the relative permanence of annotations on paper, the lack of space to make more than short notes, and the difficulty for instructors to access and provide feedback on the quality of the annotations. Prior marks and notes in used textbooks are especially challenging as they may distract or shortchange readers when they attempt to make connections on their own. When books are in good condition, many students are loath to mark them up for fear of reducing resale value. E-texts and e-readers offer tools that overcome the challenges posed by paper textbooks (Anderson-Inman & Horney, 2007). In an e-text, students can insert (and delete or change) highlights and annotations and they won’t ever run out of room to elaborate their thoughts. More importantly, with some thoughtful course design, teachers using e-texts in the classroom can publicly model the art of critical reading while students can work as true apprentices, receiving feedback as they work in class or through the easy electronic sharing of annotations. In our