Are You Ready for College?
Strategies for Academic Success
Sessions offered during the summer months before students' freshman year prepare them for the rigors of college reading and writing tasks. The content not only provides students with insight into college professors' expectations, but also will lead to impressive scores on English placement exams.
Strategic Reading
• Using marginal notations
• Practicing four essential skills
[clarifying; predicting; summarizing; questioning]
• Keeping dialectical journals
Keys to College Success
• Note taking as a Tool for Learning
• Preparing in advance for academic lectures
• Listening for the essentials
• Mind-mapping your way to success
• Remembering what you read and hear
• Transforming your notes into tools for writing
Writing that Matters
• Using the language of academic discourse
• Knowing the four essentials of academic writing
• Writing the argumentative essay
• Determining what professors want
• Formulating effective thesis statements
• Documenting sources correctly
• Keeping track of grammar and usage corrections
• Revising, revising, revising
Using Your Peers as Resources
•The value of study groups
• The role of conversation in the making of meaning
• Understanding interpersonal and intrapersonal
psychological planes
• Placing academic material in context
• Structuring effective discussions
• Dividing tasks among group members
• The peer review process
• Establishing ground rules
• Giving and receiving appropriate feedback
