Highlighting Strategy¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The highlighting strategy is a digital approach to text engagement in which learners apply individualized, color-coded highlights to a document — for example, Argument #1 in red, Argument #2 in green — with each color labeled so no key is needed. Because the highlighting is digital, highlights can be exported by color into a single table, converting scattered marks into an organized set of ideas the learner can then summarize. This transforms highlighting from a passive reading habit into a categorization-and-consolidation routine that supports deeper analysis and organization of information.

Design Implications¶

Highlighting on its own is one of the least effective study strategies when used passively — learners often highlight nearly everything and gain little [~S]. Its effectiveness improves substantially when highlighting is constrained and purposeful: learners are told what categories to mark, given a limited quota per color, and required to do something with the highlights afterward, such as summarizing or reorganizing them Ponce et al.'s meta-analysis found learner-generated highlighting benefits learning when it directs attention to key ideas rather than serving as rereading. [+M]. The digital affordances — labeled colors and export-by-color — are what elevate this above paper highlighting, because they force selection into categories and produce an artifact for Summarization and Synthesis.

Context¶

Requirements¶

• A digital text and a tool that supports labeled, multi-color highlighting with export (e.g., Perusall, Actively Learn, Google Docs, Hypothesis)
• Explicit category labels assigned to each color before reading (claims, evidence, counterarguments, unfamiliar vocabulary)
• A follow-on task that uses the exported highlights — a summary, an outline, a discussion post, or an argument built from the marked evidence
• Teacher modeling of what makes a sentence worth highlighting (Think-Aloud on a short passage works well)

Constraints¶

• Unconstrained highlighting degrades into rereading with a marker: learners over-highlight, feel fluent, and learn less than they think [-S] — highlighting shows among the lowest utility ratings in reviews of study techniques when used without structure
• Learners with weak prior knowledge struggle to prioritize what deserves highlighting; limiting the number of items per color (e.g., "at most three red highlights per section") counteracts this [-M]
• Color-coding adds a layer of decision load; too many categories at once can produce cognitive overload rather than clarity [~M]
• Effectiveness drops when the highlight task is generic ("highlight what's important") rather than category-driven

Implementation Variability¶

• Category-driven marking: each color maps to a labeled category (argument, evidence, counterclaim); export by color yields a ready-made graphic organizer
• Quota-constrained marking: a maximum number of highlights per color forces prioritization and selection
• Progressive fading: teacher-provided highlights first, then partially marked texts, then fully learner-generated marks as skill develops
• Collaborative marking: shared documents where students compare and defend highlight choices (Class Discussion)
• Cross-text synthesis: highlights exported from multiple sources and merged into one table to support Comparing Cases or argument construction

Target Learners¶

• High school and undergraduate students reading informational or argumentative texts
• Developing readers who benefit from an external structure for discriminating central from peripheral ideas
• Less beneficial as an independent strategy for novices without category labels or quotas — they tend to highlight indiscriminately [-M]
• Digital highlighting with export particularly supports learners who struggle to re-sift long documents or hold multiple text threads in mind

Target Learning Goals¶

• Text structure and argument analysis: distinguishing claims, evidence, and counterarguments
• Selective attention to key ideas during reading
• Consolidation and organization: converting reading into a summarizable, reusable artifact
• Metacognitive monitoring: quota and category constraints make learners justify selection decisions

Instructions¶

1. Assign labeled colors and state the categories (e.g., red = claim, green = supporting evidence, blue = counterargument).
2. Model the selection decision on a short passage, thinking aloud about why one sentence merits a highlight and a neighboring one does not (Think-Aloud).
3. Have students read and highlight with a quota per color to force prioritization (Annotating).
4. Export highlights by color into a table.
5. Require a synthesis product built from the exported table — a written summary, an outline, or an original argument (Summarization and Synthesis).
6. Debrief: compare highlight choices across students to surface differences in interpretation (Class Discussion).

Related Strategies¶

• Annotating — the broader family of text-marking moves; highlighting is the color-categorized subset
• Summarization — the natural follow-on task that converts highlights into learning
• Close Reading — category-driven highlighting operationalizes close-reading routines digitally

Examples¶

• Actively Learn (https://www.activelylearn.com) — teachers embed category-labeled highlighting questions in texts; student highlights and responses export to a teacher dashboard.
• Perusall (https://www.perusall.com) — social annotation platform where students highlight and comment on shared readings; highlight categories can be assigned by the instructor.
• Hypothesis (https://web.hypothes.is) — open web annotation used in courses for collaborative, color-coded marking of public texts.
• A high school ELA teacher limits students to three red (claim) and five green (evidence) highlights per article, then has them export highlights into a two-column table used to draft an argumentative essay outline.

Key Sources¶

• Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. doi:10.1177/1529100612453266
• Ponce, H. R., Mayer, R. E., & Méndez, E. E. (2022). Effects of learner-generated highlighting and instructor-provided highlighting on learning from text: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 34, 989–1024. doi:10.1007/s10648-021-09654-1
• Yue, C. L., Storm, B. C., Kornell, N., & Bjork, E. L. (2015). Highlighting and its relation to distributed study and students' metacognitive beliefs. Educational Psychology Review, 27, 69–78. doi:10.1007/s10648-014-9277-z
• Peterson, S. E. (1992). The cognitive functions of underlining as a study technique. Reading Research and Instruction, 31(2), 49–56. doi:10.1080/19388079209558078