As if revisiting a long-forgotten dream, I sometimes think back upon the “long readings” of my high school days, when a few chapters of Frankenstein or one interview on the Great Depression seemed a perilous amount of content. Since coming to college- and loading my schedule with social science classes- I’ve discovered it’s often no longer possible to skim my assigned readings during the lunch-hour-of-education-past or on the walk to class. Especially for classes where nothing associated with the readings is actually turned in, morale might be understandably low. When “the readings” often date back to the 1800s, the content itself isn’t changing, but your strategies certainly can. Here are three ways to mix up the very straightforward process of “doing the readings”.
- Add in audio
When a reading is exceptionally long, it’s easy to lose focus and have to go back over whatever sentence or paragraph you just took the time to haphazardly skim. As the hours in Butler blur together, so do the words on your screen, (page?) which is why I started including an audio transcription of my readings to listen to while simultaneously scanning the page. Reminiscent of an elementary school teacher up at the whiteboard, I use my Amazon dupe Apple pen as a “pointer” to follow along/annotate the reading on my screen while listening to the melodic voice of someone named Geffen from the website “Speechify”. Speechify is a free service that allows you to convert your readings into a variety of vocal selections- including MrBeast and Gwyneth Paltrow, if either of those sound like the perfect fit for you.
- Switch to printed pages from a digital screen
Or go from digital to printed. The point here is that variety might help break up what seems tedious. I find that switching in the interest of ditching digital readings can sort out mild cases of screen fatigue, and physical annotating can be kind of a de-stressor! You might discover that having physical copies of a reading can be shockingly convenient for seminar-based classes. For readings where you truly are assigned the entire book, and it’s financially viable to pick up a new or used physical copy, that can be the way to go in terms of staying present and engaged with the material.
- Highlight with intention
I’m very guilty of getting a little too liberal with my highlighting when doing long readings. Sometimes, highlighting (or annotating) seems the only way to establish a placeholder in a sea of many pages- a perfectly viable strategy. In the interest of leveling up your annotations and trying to stay more concentrated, I raise to you the idea of using different colors for different things you’re “reading for”. This can be as broad as “key themes,” “main characters,” etc, or as specific as “examples of neoliberal ideology in modern day healthcare.” The girl with the 500 highlighters is an archetype that gets a lot of unnecessary hate. Students might choose to avoid these negative associations entirely by digitally switching colors/categories, but I personally support a pencil pouch filled to the brim and or an arts-and-crafts moment.