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For more detailed instructions, see the "Get Started" section of the Standard Instruction Set: Textbook Skills [http://www.textmapping.org/LessonPlans/1000.html#getStarted].

The goal here is to get your students to interact with the text and think about topic hierarchies. Notice how they approach this interaction: Top down? Bottom up? Random? Do they start at the top level, and draw a distinction between the chapter introduction, the main content, and the chapter review; or do they dive right in and start identifying very small chunks of information? Do they seem to have a method, or is it a free-for-all? Ultimately, you want them to learn how to use a top down approach, but it is certainly acceptable for them to arrive at that conclusion on their own, after a more extended bottom up or random process.

As they look at the main content, do they know what to do with sidebars (assuming there are any)? Sidebars are often inserted in between chapters - and it's not always clear to students that they are standalone features. Moreover, students often do not understand how sidebar content relates to the rest of the chapter. These are connections which need to be made consciously and explicitly.

So, if the only answer you get is to break the unit into its constituent chapters, or if they miss one or more unit-level features, you might try restating the problem: "Let's list all of the features that make up this unit." Try to engage the students in a more thoughtful survey of the unit.

Write all of their answers down, then apply the following test to each one: "Is this a unit-level feature, or is it a chapter-level feature?" Allow for debate and discussion. When students offer an opinion, ask them to explain their reasoning.

Once you are satisfied that the unit-level survey is complete, move on to the questions below.

You want a better answer than "Because it's at the beginning of the unit." What you are really looking for is some insight from your students - because insight is what Active Reading is all about. Your goal is to get them thinking - and to get them to verbalize their thoughts so that they can learn from each other what it means to become actively engaged in a dialog with a text.

Let's assume, for example, that they have accurately identified and boxed-in the Unit Introduction. You want them to tell you what, beyond the fact that it's at the beginning of the unit, might have clued them in to the fact that this is an introduction. How do they know that it's not simply the introduction to the first chapter in the unit? How can they confirm that this is the unit introduction?

Moreover, you want them to tell you what kind of introduction this is. For example: Is it a lead-in that sets the stage? Is it a statement of some larger theme that ties together the unit? Does it preview the main points of each chapter in the unit? In short, what purpose is served by this introduction? Finally, in addition to explaining to you the purpose of this introduction, you want them to explain to you in what ways they might expect to use this introduction to guide their comprehension as they read the unit.

For more examples of this line of questioning, see Relating Introductions and Preview Points to the Text [http://www.textmapping.org/LessonPlans/1003.html].

For questions pertaining to review sections, see the following:

• Relating the Review Sections to the Text: Factual Questions [http://www.textmapping.org/LessonPlans/1007.html]
• Relating the Review Sections to the Text: Summary Information [http://www.textmapping.org/LessonPlans/1008.html]
• Relating the Review Sections to the Text: Questions of Analysis, Inference, and Speculation [http://www.textmapping.org/LessonPlans/1009.html]

This is a quick check to make sure that your students understand what constitutes a chapter. For example: have they correctly included the chapter review sections within the boundaries of the chapter-boxes they have drawn? Have they incorrectly included unit-level sidebars within the boundaries of any of the chapter-boxes?

For questions pertaining to the information within chapters, see Hierarchical Structure and Types of Information within Chapters [http://www.textmapping.org/LessonPlans/1002.html], as well as the lessons that follow it in the Lesson Guides for Textbook Skills series.

Now that you have boxed-in the unit-level features, the unit should be clearly divided into a series of boxed-areas. There should not be any areas remaining that are not boxed-in. If any un-boxed areas remain, they will be easy to spot. These are the areas you missed. Your students should be able to see this. If they don't see the obvious, try rephrasing the question: "How would you know if you missed something?"

Once you are satisfied that you have boxed-in all of the unit-level features, move on to the questions below.

This is a good way to start a larger discussion about the length and complexity of a text - and the implications for the reader. Students need to learn how to estimate - before plunging in and reading - how much work lies ahead. This is a critical skill for managing work load. It is also a critical skill for comprehension.

For example, you might ask your students to make some preliminary predictions about the amount of work that will be required to read through each of the chapters in the unit. Ask them to do this solely on the basis of the graphic information available to them when they view the scroll from a distance. Among the factors you should expect them to mention are the size/area of each chapter box, the number of illustrations as compared to the amount of text, the number of headings and sub-headings in each chapter, and the length and complexity of each chapter's review section.

The unit and chapter titles, along with the headings and illustrations in the chapters, often provide more than enough information to enable students to make reasonable predictions about the subject matter in a unit.

Ask students to make their predictions - and then ask them to explain how they arrived at their predictions. Ask them to back up their explanations by referring directly to the scroll.

Also ask them to explain how they might use this information to guide their comprehension as they read. For example, a unit in a Social Studies textbook might contain three chapters, each on a different culture. Each chapter might include a section on some aspect of religion. Students should be able to recognize that religion is a common theme in the unit, and they should be able to clearly understand the difference between information relevant to a single culture discussed in one of the chapters, and information common to all three cultures discussed in the unit.