Adolescents' Constructively Responsive Reading Strategy Use in a Critical Internet Reading Task

The Internet is central to understanding literacies in the 21st century, and explication of reading strategies situated in Internet settings contributes to both our understanding of reading and our support of students in the Internet age. The purpose of this study was to examine the complexity of Internet reading strategies used by seven accomplished high school readers. Individual participants read on the Internet, with the goal of developing critical questions about their chosen contemporary controversial topic. Internet reading strategies were analyzed using participants' verbal reports, triangulated with complementary data (e.g., computer screen recordings). The data describe the nature and sequence of readers' strategies categorized into (a) realizing and constructing potential texts, (b) identifying and learning information, (c) evaluating and sourcing texts, and (d) monitoring and managing reading. Results demonstrate the role that these strategies play in constructing meaning from Internet texts, as well as the interactive patterns of strategy use in both open and closed Internet settings.