Opening Doors: Understanding College Reading, Fourth Edition

*New reading selections for this edition

PART ONE: ORIENTATION: Preparing and Organizing Yourself for Success in College

CHAPTER ONE: MAKING YOURSELF SUCCESSFUL IN COLLEGE

Skills:

Doing What Successful Students Do

Setting Your Goals

Motivating Yourself

Managing Your Time

Setting up a weekly study schedule

Making the most of your study time

Planning further ahead: Creating a monthly assignment calendar and using a daily “to do” list

Creating Your Summary: Developing Chapter Review Cards

Readings

Selection 1-1 “Why Go to College?” from P.O.W.E.R. LEARNING: Strategies for Success in College and Life by Robert S. Feldman (Study Skills)

*Selection 1-2 “Getting Ready for Prime Time: Learning the Skills Needed to Succeed Today and Tomorrow” by Bill Nickels, Jim McHugh and Susan McHugh (Business)

Selection 1-3 “Saved,” from The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley (Autobiography)

CHAPTER TWO: APPROACHING COLLEGE READING AND DEVELOPING A COLLEGE-LEVEL VOCABULARY

Skills:

Understanding the Reading Process

Improving Your Reading

Predicting as you read

Monitoring your comprehension

Adjusting your reading rate

Developing a College-Level Vocabulary

Using context clues

Using word-structure clues

Using a dictionary pronunciation key

Understanding denotations and connotations of words

Understanding figurative language

Creating Your Summary: Developing Chapter Review Cards

Readings

* Selection 2-1 “Music Revolution: Napster and Recording in the Digital Age” by Joseph R. Dominick (Mass Communications)

Selection 2-2 “The Yellow Ribbon” by Pete Hamill (Short Story)

Selection 2-3 “A Whale of a Survival Problem” by John Postlethwait (Biology)

CHAPTER THREE: APPROACHING COLLEGE ASSIGNMENTS: READING TEXTBOOKS AND FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS

Skills:

College Textbooks: A Process for Reading and Studying Effectively

Step 1: Prepare to read

Step 2: Ask and answer questions to guide your reading

Step 3: Review by rehearsing the answers to your questions

Following Directions in Textbooks and on Tests

Guidelines for following directions

Example: Directions from a Textbook

Example: Directions on a test

Creating Your Summary: Developing Chapter Review Cards

Readings

*Selection 3-1 “African Americans: The Struggle for Equality” by Thomas E. Patterson (Government)

Selection 3-2 “Parenthood?” by Diane E. Papalia & Sally Wendkos Olds (Human Development)

Selection 3-3 “Art in the Service of Religion” by Rita Gilbert (Art Appreciation)

PART TWO: COMPREHENSION: Understanding College Textbooks by Reading for Ideas

CHAPTER FOUR: DETERMINING THE TOPIC AND THE STATED MAIN IDEA

Skills:

The Topic of a Paragraph

What is the topic of a paragraph, and why is it important?

Determining and expressing the topic

The Stated Main Idea of a Paragraph

What is a stated main idea, and why is it important?

Locating the stated main idea sentence

How to tell if you have identified the stated main idea sentence

How to avoid two common errors in locating a stated main idea

Stated overall main ideas in longer passages

A Word about Standardized Reading Tests: Topics and Stated Main Ideas

Creating Your Summary: Developing Chapter Review Cards

Readings

Selection 4-1 “People with Disabilities: The New Workforce” by Michelle Conlin (Magazine Article)

Selection 4-2 “Latinos: An Emerging Influence” by Richard J. Gelles & Ann Levine (Sociology)

Selection 4-3 “Muhammad” by Michael Hart (History)

CHAPTER FIVE: FORMULATING IMPLIED MAIN IDEAS

Skills:

Implied Main Ideas in Paragraphs

What is an implied main idea?

Why is formulating implied main ideas important?

Formulating an Implied Main Idea

Steps to follow

How to use information in a paragraph to formulate the main idea

Requirements for correctly formulated main idea sentences

Implied overall main idea in longer passages

A Word about Standardized Reading Tests: Implied Main Ideas

Creating Your Summary: Developing Chapter Review Cards

Readings

*Selection 5-1 “Identity Theft: You Are at Risk” (Personal Finance)

Selection 5-2 “The Changing Roles of Men and Women” by Merrill McLoughlin and others (Sociology)

Selection 5-3 “Demography” by Richard J. Gelles and Ann Levine (Sociology)

CHAPTER SIX: IDENTIFYING SUPPORTING DETAILS

Skills:

Supporting Details in Paragraphs

What are supporting details?

Why are supporting details important?

Identifying and Listing Supporting Details

Major and Minor Details, and How to Tell the Difference

A Word about Standardized Reading Tests: Supporting Details

Creating Your Summary: Developing Chapter Review Cards

Readings

*Selection 6-1: “Diabetes: A New Epidemic” by Paul Insel and Walton Roth (Health)

Selection 6-2: “Communication Close-Up at Ben and Jerry’s Homemade” by Courtland \ Bovée and John Thill (Business)

Selection 6-3: From A Beginner’s Guide to the World Economy by Randy Charles Epping (Economics)

CHAPTER SEVEN: RECOGNIZING AUTHORS’ WRITING PATTERNS

Skills:

Patterns of Writing

What are author’s writing patterns?

What are authors' writing patterns?

Why is recognizing writing patterns important?

Recognizing Authors’ Writing Patterns

List pattern

Sequence pattern

Definition pattern

Comparison-contrast pattern

Cause-effect pattern

Avoid seeing everything as a list

A word about other writing patterns

Mixed patterns

A Word about Standardized Reading Tests: Writing Patterns

Creating Your Summary: Developing Chapter Review Cards

Readings

Selection 7-1: “Career Choice” by Jack R. Kapoor, et al. (Personal Finance)

Selection 7-2: “The Decision to Marry” by Marvin Levy, Mark Dignan, and Janet Shirreffs (Health)

Selection 7-3: “Reactions to Impending Death” by Dennis Coon (Psychology)

CHAPTER EIGHT: READING CRITICALLY

Skills:

What Is Critical Reading?

Critical Reading Skills

Determining an author’s purpose and intended audience

Determining an author’s point of view, tone, and intended meaning

A Word about Standardized Reading Tests: Critical Reading

Creating Your Summary: Developing Chapter Review Cards

Readings

*Selection 8-1: “Think Before You Speak: Public Speaking in a Multicultural World” By Stephen E. Lucas (Speech Communication)

Selection 8-2: From Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years by Sarah and Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth (Memoir)

Selection 8-3: From Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (Fiction)

CHAPTER NINE: THINKING CRITICALLY

Skills:

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical Thinking Skills

Why Readers Fail to Think Critically

Distinguishing facts fromopinions and determining whether opinions are well supported

Making inferences and drawing logical conclusions

Distinguishing between deductive inductive reasoning

Evaluating an author’s argument

Identifying propaganda devices

A Word about Standardized Reading Tests: Critical Thinking

Creating Your Summary: Developing Chapter Review Cards

Readings

Selection 9-1: "Sport Utility Vehicles: How Do I Hate Thee? Let Me Count the Ways" by Geneva Overholser (Editorial)

Selection 9-2: “Why Vote? Politicians Are All the Same" by Janet Flammang, et al. (Government)

Selection 9-3: “Take Out the Trash, and Put It…Where?" by Bernard Gavzer (Magazine Article)

PART THREE: SYSTEMS FOR STUDYING TEXTBOOKS: Developing a System that Works for You

CHAPTER TEN: SELECTING AND ORGANIZING TEXTBOOK INFORMATION

Skills:

Studying Better Rather Than Harder

Three Keys to Studying College Textbooks

Key 1: Selectivity

Key 2: Organization

Key 3: Rehearsal

Using Textbook Features

Prefaces

Tables of contents

Part openings

Chapter outlines

Chapter objectives and introductions

Lists and sequences

Boxes

Tables

Graphic aids

Vocabulary aids

Study questions and activities

Chapter summaries

Appendixes

Bibliographies and suggested readings

Indexes

Additional features and supplements

Marking Textbooks: Undelining, Highlighting and Annotating

Taking Notes from Textbooks: Outlining, Mapping, and Summarizing

Guidelines for outlining

Guidelines for the Cornell Method of note-taking

Guidelines for mapping

Guidelines for summarizing

Interpreting Graphic Material

Bar graphs

Line graphs

Pie charts

Flowcharts

Tables

Creating Your Summary: Developing Chapter Review Cards

Readings

*Selection 10-1: “The Age of Globalization” by Alan Brinkley (History)

CHAPTER ELEVEN: REHEARSING TEXTBOOK INFORMATION AND PREPARING FOR TESTS

Skills:

Rehearsal and Memory

Studying for Tests

General guidelines

Five-day test review plan

Using review cards to prepare for a test

Using test review sheets

Creating Your Summary: Developing Chapter Review Cards

Readings

*Selection 11-1: “Cultural Diversity: Family Strengths and Challenges,” by David Olsen and John DeFrain (Marriage and Family)

Appendix 1 Glossary of Key Reading and Study Skills Terms

Appendix 2 A List of Word Parts: Prefixes, Roots and Suffixes

Appendix 3 United States Map, World Map and List of World Capitals

Credits

Index

Vocabulary Log