I have previously posted a method for effectively annotating a book and I have discussed the practice of looking for Commonplace quotes and keeping a journal. Another step that you can take (or have your students take) is to Journal through the book being read. This takes the work you/they are doing by annotating the text and looking for commonplaces and brings it together in one place.
Here is an EXAMPLE of a Completed Text Journal which was done on Lois Lowry’s The Giver.
As you can see, if you clicked on the above “EXAMPLE” link, the journal allows students to state and describe the characters they are meeting in the story (or real people in history, works of philosophy etc.), it allows them to give a brief summary of the events or new information in the text, it allows them to describe the scene or geography of found in the text, you can have them pick out new vocabulary or key terms to define (or set them in advance for them to find), and you can give them a place to write their questions. When the journal is complete you can flip back through and see quickly where key information entered the story (as you should not note and describe the characters and places after the first time you encounter them).
HERE is a blank form if you’d like to print any off for your use. You may notice it’s slightly different from the above example. I continue to have an internal dialogue about the best version of these Reading Assignment Worksheets but please feel free to offer suggestions and/or run with the idea and make your own version of them.
I use the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric) as a model for question asking and I require students to form questions about the text in this way.
Grammar Questions are the most straightforward and the simplest to ask. It is basically just the first order information of the text. Who did it? Where was it? What did the person say? When did it happen? These questions cause the regurgitation of the details of the text. The student’s ability to answer these kinds of questions correctly shows that the student 1. Read the assignment, and 2. Paid enough attention to retain its basic information. Note that “why” questions can be Grammar Questions if, and only if, the answer is directly supplied by the text.
Logic Questions are those which are interpretive, comparative, or inferential. Interpretive questions might ask, “What does the author or character mean when he or she says X” or they can be along the lines of “Why would the character do X when Y would be better, what is their motivation?” Further, one could ask if a set of statements or ideas in the text are compatible or what we should conclude in light of a given set of information about what will probably happen next or what kind of person the character seems to be, etc. Sometimes I ask students to simply write a syllogism with a certain Mood and Figure based upon the information in the text or to make a counterargument to an idea presented in the text.
Rhetoric Questions are those which isolate an idea presented in the text and pull it out for discussion. While reading the Book of Exodus, for instance, the subject of Slavery becomes relevant. Here we might ask questions like, “Is slavery always evil or are their certain conditions in which slavery might be an appropriate punishment? Give your answer and defend it with reason.” In answer to such questions students may refer to the Book of Exodus but they may also bring in their prior knowledge and beliefs, as well as, other texts they’ve read which touch on the topic. Rhetoric questions can be discussed in class, of course, but they can also be good fodder for longer writing assignments.
Theological Questions are those which intentionally bring the Scripture to bear on a given issue presented in the text. They are not much different than rhetoric questions except they intentionally point us toward the Bible and how it addresses the matter. These questions ask students to look to the Scripture as the final authority for Christian faith and practice. When reading about Heracles of Greek fame it may be appropriate to ask a question about how he stacks up against Samson in the book of Judges, for instance.
In all of these categories you can see many, many examples in the Study Guides that I am publishing on this site.
There are few skills so valuable as learning how to read a book well, to know it by its parts and as a whole, and being able to ask good questions (while offering your best answers) for discussion with teachers and peers. I have found this practice personally beneficial and I am seeing it bear much fruit in my classroom.
One final recommendation, if you choose to make use of text journaling, I recommend getting three brad folders, printing off a slew of the blank sheets, three whole punched, and having students put in enough sheets to cover the number of reading assignments you intend to have for the book. Keeping these bound into a single folder per book makes them easy to turn in for grading at the end of each book (which is my habit).
Jacob I noticed that some of the responses on the example appear to be written in colored ink. Is there a significance behind the colors?
I love this! There is a new podcast coming out about Great Books and reading well. Maybe the hosts will have you on to discuss some of the ideas in this series on how to read more effectively.