Sprouse, M.L. (April 27, 2019). “Social annotation and layered readings in composition.” In Chen Chen, Kristopher Purzycki, and Lydia Wilkes (Eds.), The Proceedings of the Annual Computers and Writing Conference. Fort Collins, CO: The WAC Clearinghouse. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/proceedings/cw2018/sprouse.pdf

Scholars have described numerous accumulated purposes for reading in
composition courses, but students’ reading practices remain largely invisible
to instructors. Recent developments in social annotation tools allow readers
to share the margins of digital texts, transforming reading from a private to
a public activity. These tools make visible the reading of students, several or
a whole -class at a time, and at multiple points in the term so that instructors
can learn from and provide feedback on students’ reading practices. Results
of a study of social annotation in first-year composition indicate that students, rather than approaching texts with a single purpose, shift among and
layer reading lenses to focus on reading for ideas, rhetorical reading, critical
reading, and aesthetic reading. The purposes for and ways of reading made
visible in this study inform the design of reading instruction in the composition course to develop students’ reading strategies to improve their writing
development.