Critical Reading Skills
This guest blog post was guest written by Rachel, our uber talented in-house Ph.D., writer, and filmmaker.
“Along the means of advancing the public interest the occasion is a proper one for recalling the attention of Congress to the great importance of establishing throughout our country the roads and canals which can best be executed under the national authority. No objects within the circle of political economy so richly repay the expense bestowed on them; there are none the utility of which is more universally ascertained and acknowledged; none that do more honor to the governments whose wise and enlarged patriotism duly appreciates them.”
President James Madison, annual message to Congress, 1815
Does this paragraph mean anything to your high schooler? Many of our kids take AP US History or AP English Language as sophomores or juniors. Students who have been strong readers and writers are sometimes surprised to find that their previous coursework has not entirely prepared them for the kinds of texts they will be expected to understand and interpret in these courses. It’s like being a solid swimmer in the pool, then plunging into a cold ocean with an undertow. Different muscles are needed, and they have to do different things. The learning curve can be steep.
The summer before embarking on these courses, students should read literature from far flung times and places. The act of reading historical texts is like the act of translation. Reading narrative fiction or nonfiction that tells a story in the “different language” of earlier times and different places stretches the mind, making it more agile.
I vividly remember reading the 1958 novel Absolute Beginners by British author Colin MacInnes as a teenager. It’s about youth culture, sex and racial conflict in England in the 1950s. (I remember looking for the book because of the David Bowie song by the same name.) MacInnes wrote it in a slang so thick as to be nearly impenetrable. I barely understood the first chapter. But by the time I finished reading it, I was dreaming in the youth slang of 1950s London. Absolute Beginners would never be on an AP test, but the act of reading it stretched my reading muscles and helped prepare them for reading all kinds of things that were just as unfamiliar.
Reading narratives that deploy language new to the reader is a fun way to get ready for the kind of critical reading of historical documents that is expected of students in APUSH and AP Lang. Whether it’s Jane Austen, Henry James, Zora Neale Hurston, or the perhaps-inappropriate Colin MacInnes, for teens, having to “translate” while reading is good exercise to get in shape for the ocean swim to come.
Our kids need this skill for upper-level high school coursework, decoding SAT, ACT, and AP passages, and college-level history, literature, writing, and yes, science courses. Here are our top tips for increasing literacy and starting to use those reading muscles in new ways:
Read an article each day in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Science, The Economist, The Atlantic, or Washington Post
Read the fiction story in the New Yorker each week
Stop into your local independent bookstore, library, or used bookstore to browse frequently
Dive into a novel by Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Bronte (any Bronte!), Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, Junot Diaz, Elena Ferrante, Henry James, Arundhati Roy, or whatever strikes your fancy and looks challenging.
Turn off your phone, make yourself comfortable, grab a cookie or a cup of tea, and get into it. Read every day, and your brain will be rewired by the end of a few months.
New Boot Camp for Critical Reading Skills:
We are excited to announce a new SUMMER reading comprehension boot camp led by Rachel. The class will meet four evenings in July and August in an in-person, small-group setting.
