Across disciplines, faculty members face a common challenge of finding methods to get their students to complete assigned course readings. It becomes an even larger task to develop strategies whereby students are also engaging in deep reading that promotes critical thinking. Reading positively impacts students on a number of variables, and when students do not read, they are considerably less likely to grasp difficult concepts and complete their coursework successfully (Ryan, 2006). This is especially important for community college students who enter college underprepared (Grubb, 1999) and may need assistance from faculty in providing structure for reading. Using a mixed-method design, this study examines the usefulness of a journal-type assignment created in a psychology course at an urban community college to foster textbook reading and critical thinking about the reading. Findings indicate that the majority of students in this sample did some level of reading, as evidenced by completion of the assignment. Student evaluations and scores on the assignment further suggest that the assignment fostered engagement with the reading and critical thinking.