Paper # 2 Becoming well-read or reading well?
Academic Reading Circles as an innovative and inclusive practice Title:
Abstract
What are Academic Reading Circles?
Paper # 2 Becoming well-read or reading well?
Academic Reading Circles as an innovative and inclusive practice Title:
Becoming well-read or reading well? Academic Reading Circles as an innovative and inclusive practice
Authors:
Milena Marinkova, School of Languages, University of Leeds
Alison Leslie, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, University of Leeds
Abstract
Academic Reading Circles are an innovative strategy for supporting students’ academic reading practices. Based on reading circles used in general contexts to develop students’ engagement with reading extensively, Academic Reading Circles have been adapted to the academic context to help students engage with more complex texts in their discipline. This paper will consider how Academic Reading Circles can play a strategic role in students becoming well read or in their learning process of reading well. The authors will use their experiences of embedding Academic Reading Circles in their teaching within different disciplines( in the Arts / Humanities and Social Sciences) to explore how Academic Reading Circles can guide learners to develop a critical lens through which to examine denser academic texts, and encourage them to recognise and make the most of the multidimensionality of the reading experience.
Keywords:
Reading circles, academic reading, inclusive practice, criticality
DOI:
https:// doi. org / 10.21252 / ce5b-ka44
What are Academic Reading Circles?
Academic Reading Circles emerged in the 2010s( Seburn, 2015) from collaborative reading practices such as book clubs and literature circles( Daniels 2002), which have been adapted to English language teaching( Furr, 2004; Shelton- Strong, 2012) and content-based teaching( Williams, 2007). In essence, what these approaches have in common is that they aim to develop a range of reading skills, i. e., decoding, fluency, comprehension and monitoring, by 1) encouraging learner autonomy and 2) providing carefully scaffolded reading support. The autonomy is achieved by tutors creating the right learning environment for small, freeflowing, peer-led discussion groups of learners to read a( section of a) text and share their interpretations.
Learner autonomy and collaboration are central to reading circles, and these are prominent in the 11 principles underpinning the original practice of literature circles, outlined by Daniels( 2002, p. 18):
1. Students choose their own reading materials.
2. Small temporary groups are formed based on book choice.
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