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| painting by Edouard Vuillard |
While
working on my WEM (The Well-Educated Mind) self project, I just realized
that taking notes is one important aspect of reading—especially—classics. Susan
Wise Bauer recommends us to always jot down our thoughts, questions, summaries,
and quotes along the reading, that I must created a method to make everything
easy for me.
Between work
and other activities, I can read anytime, anywhere, during the day—on the way
to and fro the work, at work (thank God I stay behind my desk the whole day),
at home, and anywhere else possible to read. So, wherever I am, a book plus a light-small
notebook always accompany me (when I am reading for WEM project). I choose light
and small notebook because it’s quite handy and practical for me to carry. But what kind of notes, and how often I need
to take notes to require such effort for creating a method?
Character Lists
When I read
a book with many characters, and read it from e-book, I would need to make a
list of characters before I start reading. I don’t like to have to move to the
earlier page and come back again to the page I’m reading everytime I need to
refresh of some characters. With paperback I have no such problem, as I can
open the character page easily—provided that the book has it, or otherwise, I’ll
add in any characters I encounter during the reading in my notebook. Here is
just an example of my character list I wrote for Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Chapter summaries
As WEM
required us to make short summary for each chapter, I usually jot down…
1. The most
important event(s) in that chapter.
2. Any
important ideas/questions, or just my thoughts on that chapter
…everytime I
finished with a chapter. And this requires much of notes taking (and plenty of
pages in the notebook) for each book I tackle for WEM! My notes for chapter
summaries look like this….
Vocabularies
The first
book I read for WEM project was The Scarlet Letter. At that time I was
still searching the most applicable method to take my notes. I tried to do it
in the book; my copy of The Scarlet Letter is now full of summaries notes and
vocabularies (words I’m not familiar with), just like these….
But after
finishing the book, I felt guilty for having been scribbling on its pages, that
I decided to not using that method anymore, and applied the light and small
notebook system instead, which works and satisfies me so far.
Quotes
When I came to beautiful quotes or important passages I'd like to copy for my posts, I usually dog-ear the page (just a small part of the page which I would straight again after I've done copying—it won't destroy the book after it is placed on the shelf), and leave a check-mark near the passage I want to quote (so I don't have to look for it later). Why must I do that instead of copying it directly? Because I don't know whether I, in the end, will use that certain quote or not.
Quotes
When I came to beautiful quotes or important passages I'd like to copy for my posts, I usually dog-ear the page (just a small part of the page which I would straight again after I've done copying—it won't destroy the book after it is placed on the shelf), and leave a check-mark near the passage I want to quote (so I don't have to look for it later). Why must I do that instead of copying it directly? Because I don't know whether I, in the end, will use that certain quote or not.
Do you have
any particular notes-taking method for classics reading?
Check these
WEM-ers methods too, you might find a particular method of taking notes that
suits you well! (I will link to the posts after they have been published).
Ooo Fanda! Engkau mencoreti buku dan melipatnya @_@
ReplyDeleteHahaha...mencoretinya hanya sekali kok, setelah itu nggak lagi. Kalau melipat sih sampai sekarang, gampang dan murah soalnya, lagipula bekasnya bisa dibilang tak nampak kalau sudah diluruskan kembali.
DeleteI like your check-mark method! My parents got me some sticky page markers for Christmas, so I have been using those to mark lines and passages.
ReplyDeleteAnd can you find the exact lines again later on? Or are they just to mark the pages? I wish you can post about it...
DeleteThey are shaped like arrows, so I put them right on the line(s) I want to remember. They look a lot like these: Sticky Highlight Page Markers
DeleteThanks for sharing! :)
DeleteWow! You do a ton of work. I am impressed. I'd love to do a character list like yours, but I just don't take the time to stop and write them down. Maybe I'll give it a try.
ReplyDeleteThat's what made my reading so slow with WEM... :)
DeleteFor character list, it's much helpful if the book has it, otherwise we must bring notebook everywhere.
How long it takes to complete a book with WEM? Thanks for sharing your methods.
ReplyDeleteIt depends of course to the book itself. Actually, it's the same as if we are reading it only for pleasure. The differences are (for me, I don't know others' methods) I'd stop at the end of every chapter to get the main idea, then jot it down in a summary. At the end, I'd answer the inquiries from WEM (I sometimes need to browse other sources to understand better). If I feel everything I want to say is already in the inquiries, I won't write separate review. But sometimes there are things outside the inquiries that I want to express; in this case, I would write a separate final review. So, the biggest effort and time are in the inquiries (and the research if any), not in the readings.
DeleteHope it helps, and hope you'd be interested in doing WEM project! :)
Fanda, This is excellent! I need to work on keeping better character lists. I'm inspired by your example! Thank you for sharing such a thorough post! I'm really glad you joined us! :D
ReplyDeleteAdriana
And thanks Adriana, for inviting me to join you!
Delete