This website is designed to help developmental reading students with identifying patterns of academic thought found in textbooks, essays and other media. Seven common patterns are covered: cause and effect, classification, comparison, definition, example, listing and order. Users are able to listen to (read) the thoughts of a biology professor and seven students in a freshman biology class. Each is "thinking" in a certain pattern. At the end of each paragraph, users are asked a series of multiple choice questions regarding elements of the paragraph (topic, main idea, supporting detail) and asked to identify the pattern. Formal descriptions of each pattern, as well as word clues, are found on each page of the site. Upon completion of the questions following all characters, there is an interactive game in which users use the knowledge they have acquired.
The site was developed through the Dogwood Seminar and Project
of Northern Virginia Community College.
e-mail: cdorsey@nvcc.edu
Last revised: February 7, 2006