Putting the map into mapping: applying map reading skills to mapping paper text scrolls.

This case study highlights an experimental approach to increasing the engagement of postgraduate students with using and mapping paper-based scrolls. Although students seem to understand the purpose of these techniques for helping them build understanding of their reading, they tend to operate at the micro level of reading word for word, highlighting or underlining and scrolling on a screen. The use of map reading as an extended metaphor aims to enable students to apply (i) the physicality of unfolding a paper text and (ii) basic map literacy skills, such as identifying key features using symbols and tracking a route, to mapping and navigating an academic text. A series of staged tasks which enable students to do this is presented here. Feedback on the first iteration of this project suggests that students find this creative approach an engaging and accessible route into a more macro reading of academic texts but that it needs to be introduced at the start of the academic reading journey in order to have greater impact.