I too cannot read a book without a pen. In fact I won’t move to reading any digital version of a book until someone creates a system that allows me to annotate as effortlessly as I can with paper and pen.
That said I also love buying used books that have been annotated. It’s like having a conversation with the author and another “student”.
I use kindle sometimes for searchability, but I like to do things with annotation that really aren’t supported on kindle. I also have a distrust of purely digital media. The Animal Farm pigs can control digital content and change it too easily.
Thank you for this! I am starting a Great Books Masters program at the end of the month. I am a homeschool mom of 4 who hasn’t been a student since I graduated from college in 2002! This gives me such a good framework as I start my studies.
It is with Memoria College. It is all online and very flexible which is great with homeschooling my kids. I have been looking at your curriculum and it looks great. My oldest is entering 5th grade so I hope to utilize some of your resources in the future.
I do so many of the things you mentioned. I appreciate the questions you suggested. In some ways I do that. In my bible I date my comments, especially those that are either questions or a personal way it hit me in a particular season. One other thing I do in all my books (except my bible) is notate the page number and a short note on the inside front (and often back) covers of the book where I made notes, had questions, underlined great quotes, etc. Thanks for this post! :)
I used to make my pages look like fairy tale world. But, now, I don't, I just write it down in my notetaking app. I think it works just fine. But, thanks for the advices!
Ok... noooooo!!!! I grew up with notebooks and secondhand books; the first thing I would do on getting a book out of a vintage bookstore was, go over it with an eraser. Mark it? Never.
That said, I love to see people work and interface with their books. Theirs might be a way that drives me nuts but it is a reaction to what they are reading, and that's great.
To manage genuinely dense and hyperreal texts, my way is, one beautiful edition to read and one Penguin or Wordsworth to mark up :)
Jacob, this post is so rewarding. I learned how and why to notate books, with a pen, as I read, and I find that I cannot stop. It's the best thing to do and engage with a book or novel. I can go back to some of my favorite books and note how I was thinking at the time. One thing I like to do is date it. It's amazing how thinking changes as we get older. I like your system of colors for notating, but I need to know how you juggle all those pens at one time. Or is there another way you do it. Great ideas here!
Thanks for your kind words! I just have my pens laid out and switch back and forth, it’s a bit cumbersome but worth it to me. I find the benefit outweighs the trouble.
I appreciate your suggestions, and I have restacked your helpful article. I also mark up my books, but I prefer to put most of my notes in digital formats—in Evernote, for example. Like you, I teach literature. My notes really come in handy, as I’m sure yours do!
Does this affect your re-readability at all? Perhaps it is beneficial for philosophy or non-fiction. But I feel that if I were to fill the margins that it would distract me from reading the story as it is a second or third time. Perhaps the extended conversation you can then have with your previous self makes up for it though.
I think it’s fun to see how my own thinking has grown since the last time I wrote in my book and made comments. But certainly you could keep clean copies of your favorite books just for pure pleasure reading. I have series I’ve consumed without stopping and then went back and annotated later. Two different and good experiences.
In the future, when the annotator is gone, his/her annotations and marginalia become signs of usage. The recipient of the annotator is him/herself, but sometimes someone stumbles onto their markings later.
Not all markings are created equal, however.
Graffiti in books is a different matter, senseless and inane markings which only desecrate.
A topic I am presently writing about in my upcoming post.
Your post is instructive about how to mark in books without making graffiti. How to make sense with markings! Very useful, for us and our books!
Great question. I think there can be a misunderstanding about the terminolgy here because of what many classical schools do with the official teaching of the disciplines of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. In one sense these have a natural/logical order of progression and, as Dorothy Sayers points out, people have natural stages of development which can pair well with the disciplines of grammar, logic, and rhetoric (which is true), but in another important sense there are elements of grammar, logic, and rhetoric in everything we learn from the time we are very little until forever on after. In other words, grammar is associated with the pure information of a lesson, logic the reasoning and relations of ideas in a lesson, and rhetoric the expression of one's own thoughts about the lesson. In this latter sense, every lesson should have elements of all three parts of the Trivium.
So our curriculum is designed for 7-12th graders to do all three elements from the get go. Sure, they will learn progressively learn to be more logical and eventually to express themselves with greater eloquence, but they should go ahead and engage right now in all of those things while they are learning and growing and as they gain formal logic and rhetoric training. The questions do not presume they have to know how to write a syllogism or truth table for logic, just that they think through and use their best reasoning skills. They don't have to know the five canons of rhetoric to answer those questions either, but when they do know them it will certainly help their answers be better.
Thank you so much! Yes, that absolutely makes sense! In the Logic phase, perhaps we are emphasizing the “Logic” stage developmentally, but I totally agree that we can be doing all of these levels at all ages (within reason). In the same way, we don’t abandon the Grammar questions when we get to the Rhetoric stage; we still need those too! Thanks for your advice; I feel confident about giving these to my 7th Graders.
Annotating books makes them come alive, gives them a personality. I love to review my notes years later to see how I've grown and changed. For those that are hesitant to write *IN* books, consider a reading journal to jot down ideas, outlines, quotes, and pages numbers. This is how I "annotate" library books.
For someone who is trying to explore the reading world on a greater level, I find this to be very useful. I’ve been trying to come up with my own system but I certainly will try to use this as a guide.
I too cannot read a book without a pen. In fact I won’t move to reading any digital version of a book until someone creates a system that allows me to annotate as effortlessly as I can with paper and pen.
That said I also love buying used books that have been annotated. It’s like having a conversation with the author and another “student”.
Actually, the ability to underline, annotate, search, and export my notes is why I’m nearly a total digital reader!
I do appreciate your comment about “conversing” with other readers! (Kindle has this feature too!)
I use kindle sometimes for searchability, but I like to do things with annotation that really aren’t supported on kindle. I also have a distrust of purely digital media. The Animal Farm pigs can control digital content and change it too easily.
Thank you for this! I am starting a Great Books Masters program at the end of the month. I am a homeschool mom of 4 who hasn’t been a student since I graduated from college in 2002! This gives me such a good framework as I start my studies.
Awesome! Where are you going to study?
It is with Memoria College. It is all online and very flexible which is great with homeschooling my kids. I have been looking at your curriculum and it looks great. My oldest is entering 5th grade so I hope to utilize some of your resources in the future.
That’s great! Martin Cothran, who I believe is instrumental in that program, is a really great guy. I’m sure you’re going to love it!
Let me know if there is any way I can support and encourage your family as you are homeschooling!
Here is something Adler wrote regarding the marking of books which really confirmed my position to write in the majority of my books. https://stevenson.ucsc.edu/academics/stevenson-college-core-courses/how-to-mark-a-book-1.pdf
I do so many of the things you mentioned. I appreciate the questions you suggested. In some ways I do that. In my bible I date my comments, especially those that are either questions or a personal way it hit me in a particular season. One other thing I do in all my books (except my bible) is notate the page number and a short note on the inside front (and often back) covers of the book where I made notes, had questions, underlined great quotes, etc. Thanks for this post! :)
I used to make my pages look like fairy tale world. But, now, I don't, I just write it down in my notetaking app. I think it works just fine. But, thanks for the advices!
Amazing how many pre-owned books have copious markings which peter out after the first few pages!
Ha! Like New Year’s resolution journals.
Ok... noooooo!!!! I grew up with notebooks and secondhand books; the first thing I would do on getting a book out of a vintage bookstore was, go over it with an eraser. Mark it? Never.
That said, I love to see people work and interface with their books. Theirs might be a way that drives me nuts but it is a reaction to what they are reading, and that's great.
To manage genuinely dense and hyperreal texts, my way is, one beautiful edition to read and one Penguin or Wordsworth to mark up :)
Jacob, this post is so rewarding. I learned how and why to notate books, with a pen, as I read, and I find that I cannot stop. It's the best thing to do and engage with a book or novel. I can go back to some of my favorite books and note how I was thinking at the time. One thing I like to do is date it. It's amazing how thinking changes as we get older. I like your system of colors for notating, but I need to know how you juggle all those pens at one time. Or is there another way you do it. Great ideas here!
Hi,
Thanks for your kind words! I just have my pens laid out and switch back and forth, it’s a bit cumbersome but worth it to me. I find the benefit outweighs the trouble.
Great post! I’ve thought about writing something on this subject myself.
Annotation is a form of conversation with the author…
As opposed to feeling “talked at” by them.
I appreciate your suggestions, and I have restacked your helpful article. I also mark up my books, but I prefer to put most of my notes in digital formats—in Evernote, for example. Like you, I teach literature. My notes really come in handy, as I’m sure yours do!
Does this affect your re-readability at all? Perhaps it is beneficial for philosophy or non-fiction. But I feel that if I were to fill the margins that it would distract me from reading the story as it is a second or third time. Perhaps the extended conversation you can then have with your previous self makes up for it though.
I think it’s fun to see how my own thinking has grown since the last time I wrote in my book and made comments. But certainly you could keep clean copies of your favorite books just for pure pleasure reading. I have series I’ve consumed without stopping and then went back and annotated later. Two different and good experiences.
In the future, when the annotator is gone, his/her annotations and marginalia become signs of usage. The recipient of the annotator is him/herself, but sometimes someone stumbles onto their markings later.
Not all markings are created equal, however.
Graffiti in books is a different matter, senseless and inane markings which only desecrate.
A topic I am presently writing about in my upcoming post.
Your post is instructive about how to mark in books without making graffiti. How to make sense with markings! Very useful, for us and our books!
How young do you think you can introduce the Rhetoric Questions for students? Would the Logic/Grammar questions be more appropriate for 7-9?
Hi Shea,
Great question. I think there can be a misunderstanding about the terminolgy here because of what many classical schools do with the official teaching of the disciplines of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. In one sense these have a natural/logical order of progression and, as Dorothy Sayers points out, people have natural stages of development which can pair well with the disciplines of grammar, logic, and rhetoric (which is true), but in another important sense there are elements of grammar, logic, and rhetoric in everything we learn from the time we are very little until forever on after. In other words, grammar is associated with the pure information of a lesson, logic the reasoning and relations of ideas in a lesson, and rhetoric the expression of one's own thoughts about the lesson. In this latter sense, every lesson should have elements of all three parts of the Trivium.
So our curriculum is designed for 7-12th graders to do all three elements from the get go. Sure, they will learn progressively learn to be more logical and eventually to express themselves with greater eloquence, but they should go ahead and engage right now in all of those things while they are learning and growing and as they gain formal logic and rhetoric training. The questions do not presume they have to know how to write a syllogism or truth table for logic, just that they think through and use their best reasoning skills. They don't have to know the five canons of rhetoric to answer those questions either, but when they do know them it will certainly help their answers be better.
I hope that makes sense and is helpful. Let me know if I need to answer anything more clearly or specifically. You might also read this which I wrote recently about how to use this curriculum: https://stgb.substack.com/p/a-word-to-teachers?utm_source=publication-search
Thank you so much! Yes, that absolutely makes sense! In the Logic phase, perhaps we are emphasizing the “Logic” stage developmentally, but I totally agree that we can be doing all of these levels at all ages (within reason). In the same way, we don’t abandon the Grammar questions when we get to the Rhetoric stage; we still need those too! Thanks for your advice; I feel confident about giving these to my 7th Graders.
Great!
I agree! Finally someone who understands why I actually annotate on everything I read! 👏
Annotating books makes them come alive, gives them a personality. I love to review my notes years later to see how I've grown and changed. For those that are hesitant to write *IN* books, consider a reading journal to jot down ideas, outlines, quotes, and pages numbers. This is how I "annotate" library books.
For someone who is trying to explore the reading world on a greater level, I find this to be very useful. I’ve been trying to come up with my own system but I certainly will try to use this as a guide.
Thank you for sharing!
I’m glad this was helpful to you. Here is someone else you might enjoy on a similar note: https://open.substack.com/pub/stgb/p/commonplace-journals?r=1e1jhj&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Also:
https://stgb.substack.com/p/great-books-study-guides