Writing Notes By Hand: Optimal Learning

"Attention, Students: Put Your Laptops Away" by James Doubek, NPR Staff

• ""Mueller and Oppenheimer cited that note-taking can be categorized two ways: generative and nongenerative. Generative note-taking pertains to "summarizing, paraphrasing, concept mapping," while nongenerative note-taking involves copying something verbatim."

• "And there are two hypotheses to why note-taking is beneficial in the first place. The first idea is called the encoding hypothesis, which says that when a person is taking notes, "the processing that occurs" will improve "learning and retention." The second, called the external-storage hypothesis, is that you learn by being able to look back at your notes, or even the notes of other people."

• "But the students taking notes by hand still performed better. "This is suggestive evidence that longhand notes may have superior external storage as well as superior encoding functions," Mueller and Oppenheimer write."

Active Reading

All smart, perceptive, thoughtful writers take their time to study and dissect what they're reading. In short, writers learn to write well by reading how other writers construct sentences, ideas, examples, and more:

·       One must play close attention to, pose questions, and break down any text that comes one’s way!

·       Simple steps to enact active reading:

o   Highlighters can be good friends. (Consider color-coding)

o   Dictionaries can be your BFF, and help you build your vocab…"COLLECT" those words you are not sure of as you read.

o   Wikipedia is a frenemy!  (You have to be careful around Wiki, as Wiki can be very wicked. Yes, this is really goofy, but it’s a mnemonic device.)

o   Mnemonic devices: memory techniques, including use of “acronyms” (FBI or CIA or D.A.R.E.) and personal “associate value” such as “____sounds like _____” or using rhyme or creating a little song or poem…

o   Take Notes in a notebook as you read… and/or…

o   Use the margins of a text | all available white space of a page

§  Create a running commentary of emotions

§  Pose questions

§  Pull out the main concept / restate main word from a paragraph

§  Note where ideas shift at beginnings of new paragraphs (chart the author’s "progression of thesis"!)

o   Re-title the piece or its sections for your own reflective understanding

o   At end of reading text (in white space at end, or on separate sheet of paper):

§  What is the major plot point? (good in literature to ask)

§  What was the major example used?

§  What are large points that you took from your first read?

§  . . . other ideas YOU find relevant to notate.