More than anything else, history is about reading, and reading is what we'll do in this course. We have LOTS of readings to tackle. However students, like historians, have limited time to read. Fortunately, there are some basic reading strategies that all historians employ making their reading more efficient, enjoyable, and useful. Take a look at this website below which highlights some of these strategies.
http://www.mindtools.com/rdstratg.html
In this course, reading is critical. I have very carefully chosen HIS 206 reading assignments. When you read assignments in this course, follow this routine and you'll get the most out of the texts (adopted from Steven Kreis):
1. Pick up the book, look at the covers. See anything interesting?
2. Who wrote the book? Does the publisher give you any information?
3. When was it written? Do you think this makes a difference? Why?
4. Scan the Table of Contents. See anything you like?
5. Read the Preface and Introduction.
6. Are there any illustrations? footnotes? a bibliography?
7. Can you determine the general thesis of the book?
8. Read the first sentence. Does it hold your attention? Or, do you then put the book down and say, "I'll start reading this tomorrow"?
9. Does it look like a good book? worthy to be read?
10. Why might Prof. Zappia have assigned this particular text?
No comments:
Post a Comment