My advice for taking informative notes and how to perform a close-reading
My notes will apply to advanced high school students or college level readers but my method is something that anyone can use as it involves applying critical thinking skills. Many, many years ago when I began college, the reading material presented to me was at time so overwhelming that I was never really sure where I should focus my attention. Not all professors offered a rubric and I would end up highlighting entirely too much and attempt to memorize the majority of the material. Well, it wasn't until much later that I began to grasp the notion that in order to "remember" what I read, I needed only to focus on a few things. Here is my list of where I focus my attention, which also serves a close-reading well.
1. Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? (Sounds easy, peasy, right? But when tasked with reading an abundance of material at once, facts, names and places can begin to blur together. So I devised a way to "memorize" what I read.)
- Who is the author? (Male/Female? - How does this affect their writing?)
- Where did he/she live or in which country did he/she write - America/Ex Pat/England/Paris?
- When did the person live and write?
- What was the environment like in which the author lived and/or wrote?
- How was the author affected by their environment/the era in which he/she live, and what the social customs/norms influenced the author personally and what was the political environment at the time? (How did this affect their writing?)
- Knowing a bit of the author's backstory, what influenced his/her writing, the point she/he is arguing for or against, and if she/he is constrained by something or if she/he is expressing something and if so, what?
2. What are the recurrent *themes? *Images? *Objects? *Metaphors? Do they have any significance to the story? If so, what? Authors will sometimes rely on objects to personify a political party. What about the authorial "*Voice" stands out to you?
(* If metaphors are used, authorial intent can be misconstrued, but if the literary text is taken at face value, its meaning can be more concrete. In other words, do not try to read between the lines. read what they are telling you and then applying critical thinking, determine what the author's message is.)
*Theme Analysis - see bottom of this post for an example.
* The "voice, images and objects" gives way to establishing a position, a signifier, which results in the "thetic phase." Once each of these is identified, they become symbolic and produce the genotext. In this sense, literature could change based on the diverse identifiers - because society will change with time, so too will the "narrative, metalanguage, contemplation and text-practice." (Cain, et al, p 2079-80)
3. Are any social norms/historical references personified/accepted/rejected?
4. What conflict(s) are present and how are they resolved, if they are resolved? Who is affected? Why?
5. How does the story resolve itself?
6. What is the main point the author is trying to make? What are his/her beliefs?
(Literature reflects the author's era and mind. For example, is the author *for/against something? (*Argument?)
7. How does the story/or main idea relate today? (*Compare it/remember it.)
(*Aesthetic judgment is simply individual preference. It is impossible for a reader to not allow personal experiences and/or opinions influence their judgment, literary interpretation and criticism. Therefore the role of author and textual authority is diminished upon publication. Society will construct it's opinion based on individual and societal experiences.)
When I read a text, I take what the author is saying at face value. My beliefs are kept separate
from an opinion espoused in any literary work and I interpret it free of bias or preconceived notions
because I do not believe that I have to recognize my beliefs in a literary work for it to have merit.
Alternatively, interpreting a literary work from an idealistic point of view, is it not merely
reiterating what the author wrote and assuming you know what the author meant? I agree with Knapp and Michaels who wrote, "a true account of something is the difference between theory and the kind
of pragmatist argument. . . .A belief about the nature of beliefs is inconsequential because it merely
tells you what beliefs are, not whether they are true or false in particular or general." (Cain, et al, p
2505)
Source: Cain, Finke, Johnson, Leitch, McGowan, Sharpley-Whiting, and Williams. The Norton
Anthology of Theory & Criticism. 2nd Ed. Published by WW Norton and Company, New
York/London. 2010.
Read more on this topic in previously published post.
An example of the beginning of a theme analysis (citation follows):
A major theme in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is growing up. Throughout the work Alice changes size twelve times. People change size when they grow up. The size change equating to growing up is also a metaphor; in English the description “being bigger” often means “being older.” For the purposes of the story, Alice grows both larger and smaller, but with each change, Carroll is symbolizing Alice’s maturation process. Each time she grows larger or smaller, she has to deal with a problem related to the change in her size. The very first size change comes when she has recklessly followed the White Rabbit down the hole and into Wonderland. She found a key which unlocked a door, but she could not go through it because she was the wrong size. This fantastical situation happens often in real life. As children are growing up, they often feel that they are not the right size to do whatever they want to do. One day they might feel that they should be bigger so that they might go wherever they wished and the next day they might feel that they should be smaller so they do not have to do chores. Thus Alice’s desire to be a different size in the very first chapter of the book indicates that growing up is a major theme in the work. - Via