Students often have a difficult time finding important information in assigned readings. Students are even more challenged when asked to identify information from books or texts that can help them participate in a meaningful class discussion. Recently NPR developed a book guide for the Morning Reads Book Club it launched in December.  The book guide uses a number of strategies that may help your students get more from their readings and be more prepared for discussion.

1. It identifies a pre-reading question that ask students to reflect on the existing knowledge they have about the subject.  In this case, the question is "What do you remember about the Chilean mining accident?"  This "before you read" question may even help students identify other questions they hope to answer from reading the text. 

2. It asks students to identify quotations from the text that they find interesting or meaningful.  You might even ask students to post some of the facts/passages to a discussion board or record them on the white board as you begin class discussion.  This guide provides some interesting facts as examples: "33 men were trapped in a mine 700 meters underground (2 Empire State buildings) for 69 days."

3. It asks students to identify questions that emerge as they read.  You can modify this by having students bring questions to class (even as a graded assignment - if your students need that kind of motivation).

4. It identifies questions that may guide your classroom discussion. (Ex. "How do archetypal and mythic themes shape this book about real events?")

5. It ask students to reflect upon and describe how their thinking changed as a result of the group discussion. 

While book groups are different from classrooms, providing a simple scaffolding for the text can help students identify what the text says, what the text means, and why it is important.