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September 14, 2005
step one: find the damn path!
as a wrap-up to a discussion he had w/a graduate class i'm not in but wish today (& not for the first time) that i were, cgb @ cvb says:
when you read a book (or a week's set of readings), do this: put the info at the top of the page, and give yourself only 1 page, and only 10 minutes, to take a verbal snapshot of the reading.Some possible categories for this activity:
- The 1-sentence summary. Obvious enough.
- Keywords or tags. I'm more and more enchanted with this method of "distant reading" a text.
- Yes/No. We talked about why we "go back" to texts, and often, it's either because we want some support for a claim, or because we're working against it in some way. So jot down 2-3 fairly central claims with which you agree, and 2-3 with which you either disagree or about which you have doubts or concerns.
- Passages. Some people copy out key passages, but I've always found it more useful to do a quick transcription: page number, and a quick description. I often do this when I prepare to talk about a text in a course.
- Top 5. Imagine being able to ask the author, based purely on the text in front of you, who their top 5 suggested sources would be. That is, what are the 5 texts that would help you read this one better?
I'm sure that there are other possibilities, but you get the idea. The idea is to only take 10 minutes and to use categories that are recognizable once the reading itself has faded from memory. Imagine being able to look over a semester's worth of entries, and look for those authors whose names appear most frequently in the Top 5's (this might answer the question "what should I be reading?"). Or being able to see some patterns in the kinds of claims you pay most attention to, or the thing(s) that you have the most skepticism about.
i have 2 books read out of the 100 (an approximate number: the real thing is still all blurry, as my advisory board and i have a lot of pinning-down of the texts still leaping like dolphins into & out of the water, from one list to another & back on & off again) i'm supposed to be an expert on by mid-january. saintly advisorperson says those are the last 2 books i'm to read cover-to-cover in any sort of linear fashion; before i leap into trying to do the rest her way, though, i've got to get something logged about these two before they disappear into the fog.
for a little bonus-pressure: she wrote/edited both of them.
Posted by ttobryan at September 14, 2005 09:31 AM
Comments
i'm sure if there weren't added pressure we would just croak from astonishment. :)
the last bit does beg the question, how does saintly advisor person recommend reading?
Posted by: Marcia at September 17, 2005 12:11 AM
"like a ninja!"
intro & conclusion, then decide what of the stuff between you actually need to pay attention to, read that, & glance over the rest only for necessary contextualizing.
so far i am terrible at this.
Posted by: tyra at September 17, 2005 03:57 PM
Cool. I just copied Collin's Writing on one side of a 3x5 and Becky's Reading on the other side. I'll use it as a bookmark and maybe that will help. There is just too little time.
Posted by: Marcia at September 18, 2005 10:00 PM
LOL! I'm on this blog for the first time in a coupla weeks, and look at you go! Pressure? Hells bells, I was saving the pressure for later...............
Posted by: senioritis at September 28, 2005 11:07 PM