Image Credit: Patrick Tomasso, Unsplash

The goal of this project is to support ENA students in working with texts for the larger 101 class by scaffolding the process of analysis through a deep dive into the author, the intent of the piece, and any source used within the larger text. Often, students with weaker reading skills struggle with critical analysis; they may easily read the required text, but do not understand how to ask larger questions or make useful connections.

Here, too, by supporting and modeling discussion of the texts in the ENA portion of the class, I want to allow ENA students to be “experts” on the text when it is discussed in the ENG portion of the class. The goal here is to give these students confidence in answering questions and positing ideas in the larger class context.

The assignment here is comprised of three reading logs in total:

A) Reading Log #1 (Tim Carman “To David Chang, the ‘Ethnic’ Aisle Is Racist. Others Say It’s Convenient”) will be completed together in the ENA portion of the class, and is designed to guide students through the first several questions by modeling the actual answers. Students can work together in groups to discuss the remaining questions, writing out their individual answers to submit.

B) Reading Log #2 (Priya Krishna “Why Do American Grocery Stores Still Have an Ethnic Aisle?”) can be completed in the ENA portion of class, as group work or individually – especially with the use of a computer lab, or as a take-home assignment.

The questions here are almost identical to those from the first reading log, but without the modeling of the answers. Now that students understand what is being asked of them, they should have more confidence in structuring a response.

C) Reading Log #3 (Side-by-Side Analysis) is the work that will be completed by the larger ENG101 class as homework, as support for our discussion there.

While these reading logs are tailored to these specific readings, those text-specific questions appear at the end of each reading log, and can easily be modified to work for other texts, especially those texts that speak in a continuum on a topic.

Reading Log Assignment Files

Reading Log #1 (Tim Carman “To David Chang, the ‘Ethnic’ Aisle Is Racist. Others Say It’s Convenient”)

Reading Log #2 (Priya Krishna “Why Do American Grocery Stores Still Have an Ethnic Aisle?”)

Reading Log #3 (Side-by-Side Analysis)