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turn, it alerts you that something is different from what you were expecting — and prompts you to ask
why. So if your prediction based on reading is wildly off, it may alert you to the fact that your previous
idea of the “big picture” of the section was off for some reason. You might need to back up and reread
a section, or you might at least move forward with a better sense of where the author is going. Again
using the first section of Chapter 1 as an example, what do you imagine will happen next to people
who have been made weak by famine?

Note Taking
Of course, simply reading the text is not sufficient. You’ll never remember everything that’s important
unless you take notes. Students experience many pitfalls when taking notes. You should only write
notes after you understand what you have read. Actively question, clarify, summarize, and predict in
your head (or out loud) as you read each chapter; then go back through the subsections and take brief
notes representing the key ideas of that section.
this sample.
Brief is generally better: don’t wear yourself out on the notes themselves. Find some consistent abbrevia-
Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
Worth Publishers.
tions for frequent words, and use symbols. For example, use an up arrow to indicate growth, a flat arrow
to indicate cause/effect, an “=” to indicate a definition, and so on. Don’t write everything; ask yourself if
For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.
a particular point is a main idea or just an example. If you own your textbook, make annotations in the
Uncorrected proofs have been used in
margins. If not, get a stack of sticky notes and place them in the margins for your comments.

EXERCISE: Let’s practice the four skills for understanding texts with the section “How
did the plague affect European society?” on pages 12–17 in Chapter 1.
by Bedford, Freeman &
Questioning: What was the Black Death? Whom did it affect? Where did it arise, and
where did it spread? When did it spread? Why and how did it spread the way it
did? How did people respond? What were its effects and consequences?
Clarifying: Important words like Black Death and flagellants are defined in the text
itself, but are there any words that you do not understand? If there are any
sentences you don’t understand, do they become clearer as you reread them or
Copyright ©
as you read on in the text?
Summarizing: Briefly explain what this section is about in one sentence.
Distributed
Predicting: Based on the section you’ve just read, what do you think will come next in
the text? How do you know?
Now that you know what this section is about, what brief comments are worth writing
down in your notes?

POST-READING

Reflecting on what you’ve read places information you’ve just learned into long-term memory.
Post-reading involves doing the same kind of summarizing you’ve done section by section, but now
for the entire chapter. In essence, it is a summary of your summaries. While it might seem enough
to summarize the chapter verbally, writing down key ideas helps you remember them a week or a
month later. Read through the notes that you’ve taken for the chapter, particularly the summary of
each section. Then, using no more than fifty words, try to write a master summary of the entire
chapter that captures the key idea of each section of the chapter, as well as the chapter as a whole.

EXERCISE: Write a master summary of Chapter 1.

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