There is a significant mismatch of student preparation for college-level reading tasks and literacy demands placed on our liberal arts college students today. Widely accepted schema theory suggests that teaching metacognition, or consciously thinking about how one thinks, is helpful. Once thinking processes are made transparent to the learner, he can monitor when thinking has broken down and know when and why to activate literacy strategies. Instructors may also help at-risk students by focusing on the concepts that underlie content and the interrelationships between and among ideas. This document describes the creation of a college course that aimed to provide authentic literacy experiences and explicitly teach literacy strategies. Graphic organizers were designed to represent the thinking processes that typify interactive reading. Top-down visuals--chains, planning charts or flow charts, scales for weighing arguments, and concept maps, for example--can anchor abstract concepts and help with problem solving. Bottom-up visuals like pie charts, grids, and graphs can help students scan, sort, and organize information. Both can be instrumental in facilitating learning strategies in the at-risk student. Seven figures show examples of the graphic organizers. (BEW)