I'm Not a Hypocrite--Really

This is the time of the semester when I ask my students to begin their reading journals. Write about what you are reading. It is simple. And yet, it is the kind of assignment that students tend to see as busy work. In other words, they think, no one has to do this sort of thing except students who are only really doing it for a grade.

I try never to ask my students to do something I wouldn't do or don't do. So I pause I bit when I ask them to keep reading journals because I don't keep a reading journal that looks much like what I assign. I rarely, for example, free write about what I've been reading. I do, however, write about my reading every day--in lesson plans for class reading, in a personal journal and (rarely) on another blog for my "fun" reading.

No one ever asked me to keep a reading journal when I was an undergraduate--I so wish they had!--and it wasn't until I was a graduate student that I developed my own system of keeping track of my reading and research; this system is what I think of as my reading journal. I don't like typing while also reading in a book or from photocopies. So I take handwritten notes on a steno pad as I write. They look something like this:

Yes, I actually copy out entire passages--it makes me careful in choosing them and forces me to do the work of paraphrasing or summarizing more often. I put my own ideas, thoughts, objections, points of comparison, side notes, and so on in brackets. Here, I'm reminding myself to read a book this author alludes to: [read Levine's Realistic Imagination]. Then--and this is the part that is dialectical--I take my notes to the computer and create an entry in a word document with other entires on the same topic. As a review the original notes, I usually flesh out the notes at this point and add to my own comments and questions. Here's an example from a different reading.

When I'm ready to use these notes in an article, I usually cut and paste large chunks of these notes directly into the first draft. Most of it gets cut down eventually, but I find it helps to have more specifics at hand--this way I don't have to keep going back to the original book or journal. Some scholars use systems of notecards, others use bibliography software. I guess the key is finding a system that works for you and doesn't feel like busywork!