1. Taking active reading notes

2. What is Active Reading??
Well, simply put, active reading can be described as “reading with an awareness of a purpose for reading.”

3. Why should you take active reading notes?
In order to better understand and relate to the text, a reader needs to have meaningful interaction with the words and ideas.
Active reading and note-taking is one way to have this interaction.

4. Why should you take active reading notes?
When you are reading actively, you are engaged in the material, thinking about the information you are trying to take in.
You are making a conscious and continuous effort to understand the material you are reading and relating it to other information or knowledge you already have.

5. Why should you take active reading notes?
You are also engaged in an on-going process of asking questions of the material you are reading, and seeking answers to questions that you may have already had about the topic.
Active reading will help you gain and retain more, as well as help you be a stronger participant in Socratic Seminar/Fishbowl discussions.

6. Important points!
There are no wrong or right answers when you are taking notes. It is all about what is going to help you better understand what you’re reading and help you later during the summative assessments.
This is sort of a no brainer, BUT you are welcome to write notes directly on photocopied literature. However, when we are working in textbooks or novels, you must use Post-it notes (that is why they were on your school supply list!).

7. What can/should you take notes about?
Since the general rule is that there are no right or wrong answers, you can write about anything, but here (on the next page) is a long list of things you could consider:

8. What can/should you take notes about?
1. Predictions, such as with title of story (Make predictions using an educated guess based on what you already know about the story or what you are learning about the story, and looking at hints in the reading that seem to lead to a certain outcome.)

9. What can/should you take notes about?
2. things you notice
3. things you like (or don’t like)
4. things you don’t understand
5. things you want to understand better
6. answers to things you didn’t understand earlier in story (such as, why do the characters act the way they do? What caused events to happen? Why does the writer include certain information?

10. What can/should you take notes about?
7. Ah-ha! moments- places in the text where something suddenly becomes clear or makes sense or seems important to you for some reason 8. examples of figurative language/literary devices 9. clues about what might happen later (foreshadowing)

11. What can/should you take notes about?
10. If you’re more of a visual person, you might consider sketching or drawing notes that might help you create a mental picture of what you’re reading 11. Look for connections you can make to the literature- try to connect the literature to yourself or the world around you 12. Vocabulary, especially words that you don’t know or want to know

12. What can/should you take notes about?
13. Theorize- What theories do you have about the plot and the character’s motivations and actions? Use specific details to infer the main idea, topic, and theme of the reading. Try to use good “detective work” as you’re reading.

13. Do I expect you to make notes about all of these?
No way.
I just want you to know about all the different things you could be writing (or drawing) about. Again, you can’t really go wrong as long as you are thinking about and trying to interact with the text.

14. Remember, active reading notes will help you . . .
better understand the text
prepare you for fishbowl discussions
prepare you for summative assessments about theme, figurative language and the essays you will write about the literature (I will let you use your notes!!!)