1. close reading scanning skimming
PS. You need to know what you are looking for before you start! Try to also think of key words to look out for.
PS. With this kind of reading, you need to take a short rest every 20 minutes.
skimming
When you have the time to read something to gain a thorough understanding.
When you need to find out specific pieces of information quickly.
close reading
scanning
Students click on a technique, when you most commonly use it – and a tip about how to do it effectively. Clicking on the words / text boxes makes them disappear to reveal the Picasso picture underneath.
When you need to read a whole chunk of text quickly.
PS. A good tip is to read the first and last sentence of each paragraph.
[Mix and Match Task]

2. Scan, Skim or good ol’ fashioned Close Reading?B C
Scan, Skim or good ol’ fashioned Close Reading?
Discussion on which technique is used for each text type – designed to elicit the response that some text types, such as web pages, can be approached with different techniques depending on the situation. This is also a good point to discuss exam papers and the technique of skimming it, then choosing the ‘easy win’ tasks first. D E F G

3. Available on YouTube.
Mr Bean – ‘The Exam’

4. Imagine you are in a science exam, you are running out of time and have to complete the final section.
What kind of reading is needed for each of the following activities…

5. Read the text overleaf and complete the following tasks.
A) Statistics:
What’s the time period between infection and death for cholera?
How high was the cholera death rate in some areas?
How close was the cess pit to the Broad Street pump?
How many more cholera deaths were there in ‘down river’ areas compared to ‘up river’ areas?
B) Understanding:
Summarise the methodology Dr John Snow used to identify the causes of Cholera.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(1 mark each)
(6 marks total)
Discuss which section to start with based on points value of the section. Talk about how to deal with each section step-by-step…

6. Dr. John Snow and the London Cholera outbreak
Problem
Cholera is caused by a bacterium (Vibrio cholerae). Symptoms include chronic diarrhoea, low blood pressure and dehydration. Infected patients can die within 3 hours if they do not receive treatment.
In 1854, there was a cholera outbreak in the Soho area of London. Known as the ‘Black Death’, it had devastating outcomes with over 500 fatalities. Nearly all families in the area lost at least one member. The epidemic spread across all socioeconomic classes and because of this, there was a widespread belief that the disease was a result of ‘bad air’, known as the ‘miasma theory’.
Investigation
John Snow had a different hypothesis. He talked with local residents and theorised that the water supplies were the common source of infection. Snow identified the possible source of the Soho outbreak as the public water pump on Broad Street. To test his theory, he asked for the pump handle to be removed. As time passed, the cases of cholera decreased.
Snow then used a spot map to plot the households of the most infected families. In turn, he illustrated how cases of cholera were centred increasingly around the pump. Snow concluded that all the people infected with cholera had drunk water collected from the Broad Street well.
Having traced a pattern of infection, he then looked at other outbreaks using the same methods. Such outbreaks were having a devastating with fatality rates hitting as high as 12% of the population in some areas.
Outcome
Dr John Snow was able to show a link between areas of the River Thames being used most frequently to empty sewage, nearby water pumps and outbreaks of cholera.
The council in Soho opposed his theories at first and attempted to allow the pump to be used again but Snow’s growing body of evidence led to further investigations. It was discovered that a leaking cess pit containing sewage was only 3ft away from the well and was contaminating the water. The results of his work led to major changes in sanitation and water supply.
Snow's final summary table:
Location
Number houses
Cholera deaths
Deaths per 10,000 houses
Southwark & Vauxhall Company
(‘down river’)
40,046
1263
315
Lambeth Company (‘up river’)
26,107 98 37
Rest of London (‘no river’
1422 59
Snow showed a strong correlation between the cholera death rate and the polluted River Thames. The data also shows that a water source up-river in a less built up area was the safest option, whilst taking water directly from the Thames in Central London was more dangerous than other local non-Thames water sources combined