ABSTRACT

As writing teachers, we must interrogate our assumptions about what—and how—students should read for writing classes. In presenting the findings from a Research-Writing course redesign, this chapter invites readers to consider how assigning fewer texts, yet providing generous scaffolding for students’ reading of them, enhances students’ understanding of other writers’ choices. The author shares representative assignments to explain how using previewing and prediction techniques, budgeting class time for collaborative reader-response discussions, and foregrounding connections between assigned readings and student projects can foster more engaged readers. The author also explains how reading digital texts in their larger context by studying published authors’ source use and by introducing students to the practice of reading laterally fosters informed writers capable of achieving their own writing goals.