TRACKING YOUR READING

Bookmarks and Post-It Notes

As your summer reading assignment, you are required to take notes using the following approaches. You may use one approach or switch them up depending on what you are reading. Copies of the different bookmarks are available below.

Textual Approach

The reader examines patterns among the structural elements of a text in order to construct meaning

Cultural Approach

Readers examine how the expectations, values, and conventions of different institutional or cultural forces shape the text itself as well as readers’ responses to and understanding of that text

Topical Approach

Readers apply their background knowledge of different fields or topics to their understanding of a text. This approach encourages an inter-textual perspective

Social Approach

Readers define their social relationship with the text by evaluating:

The writer’s motives for telling the story
The sources of characters’ behaviors and relationships
The sources of readers’ own responses

What Bookmarks Look Like

Step 1: Print out a copy of the bookmark approach that you want for your book selection (you can fold it and use it like an actual bookmark!)

Step 2: Carefully read the directions on the bookmark and use the questions to guide your book notes. You may write your notes on post-its and place them right on the page you are reflecting on.

Step 3: As you are reading your book, complete continuous notes in order to keep track of your thinking. The more detailed your notes are, the more prepared you will be for our book talks in the fall. Your post-it notes will be your summer assignment.

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