Writing and thinking about writing

So, at the end of a theory-heavy week, I'd like to talk about something a little more concrete and personal. As I'm sure you've noticed, there's lots of notes in the margins of the PDFs you get. You may have guessed that these notes are mine. About half of the notes in the PDFs are notes I made for myself and about half were notes I made knowing that you guys would read them.

I'm a big believer in annotating or note-taking while you read. I'm sure you've all experienced a class where the lecture or homework, no matter how closely you pay attention, just does not stick in your memory. Or maybe, you understand the reading, but when it comes time to apply it to your own homework, you're lost. Note-taking is a way of helping you retain it and helping you attend to your own thoughts on the material, which is, in the end, the goal of education: that you can take in information and then think your own thoughts about it. For me, I like to note what I'm thinking and, in particularly difficult texts or times when I just can't seem to focus, I like to write main ideas next to paragraphs as a way to keep me on track.

So, you've got a two-part blog this week.
1) Look back over my own marginalia in the PDFs we've been working with (Barry's Feminism, During's cultural studies, Hebdige's punks). Were my notes helpful? Distracting? What would you have liked to see (or not see)? Don't worry--in no way, will you hurt my feelings.
2) I'd like you to attend to your own notetaking. Walk us through how you take notes while reading. What helps? What doesn't? What do you think you should do, but never get around to? Do you have tips for your classmates? What have other teachers said about notetaking?

You may notice that a lot of these blog posts are me asking you to reflect on something. I swear there's a purpose to this: In reflecting on your own activities, it's a way of figuring out what works and what doesn't. It's also a way of figuring out how you work. Paying attention to how you get something done (or the process) instead of just what gets done (the product) is a great way to become more productive, more efficient and improve in any task you're doing, but especially writing. (If it makes you feel better, I often have to write reflections of my own scholarship and teaching. While I find them very arduous and annoying to work through at the time, they really do help me improve my work.)

Also, a final reminder: part of the requirement for meeting online instead of in-person on Fridays is writing blog posts and commenting on them. You guys have been doing great at the blog posts, but don't forget that you also have to comment on two of your classmates' posts before Sunday. We've let discussion lag a little lately, so let's focus on improving that as a goal for the tail end of the semester.

As always, contact me if you have questions and have a good weekend!