Free Book Friday

My daughter is studying US History this week, so this should be a good one for her.  I'll read it first, of course, and then I'll try "lending" it and see how that function of the Nook works.

Here is the link: A Child al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini's Italy

The Well Educated Mind-Part 6

Chapter 4-- Starting to Read: Final Preparations (Part 3)

• Classical education employs the Socratic method of learning.
• Teachers ask select questions that direct the students thoughts in the right way.
• Self educators should have a reading partner and will use quotes when beginning to answer one of the questions.
• This anchors your ideas and forces you to be specific.
• Look for collections of essays on a book. (Universities, library)

A Note on the Lists that Follow

• Books studied chronologically for a continuous story
• Book lists are in order of intimidation with novels first, poetry last.
• You don't have to read every book on the list.  If it doesn't speak to you, move on!
• You don't have to proceed through each level of reading for every book either.
• Some books are included because of their "cultural" importance rather than "greatness".

The Well Educated Mind-Part 5

Chapter 4-- Starting to Read: Final Preparations (Part 2)

Second Reading

• Ready for a second read moving on to the next step: evaluation.
• Review difficult sections, are they clearer?
• Do comments cluster around certain parts?
• Reread summaries, can you identify which chapters had the climax, the center of the writer's argument, or the author's own summary?
• This time notes will be more detailed.
• Why did author write book?  Goal? 
• Was he successful?  Why/why not?
• Notes begin to reflect your own thoughts (why and how)

Third Reading

• Final question: so what?
• What does this writer want me to do?
• What does this writer want me to believe?
• What does this writer want me to experience?
• Am I convinced that I must do or believe what the writer wants me to do or believe?
• Have I experienced what the writer wants me to experience?
• If not, why?
• A good reader bases his opinion on analysis, not reaction.
• A reading partner/group is essential at this stage.

The Well Educated Mind-Part 4

Chapter 4-- Starting to Read: Final Preparations

• Choose a book list from part two of this book.
• Try to understand each book's basic structure and argument, then evaluate the book's assertion, and then form an opinion about the book's ideas.
• The secret to reading a difficult book is to just keep reading.
• Get the big picture, the broad sweep, the beginning, middle, and end.
• Underline, jot notes in the margins, and turn the corners of your pages down.
• Do read the title page, the copy on the back cover, and the table of contents.
• Do not read the preface unless it is written by the author or translator or you are completely befuddled at the end of chapter one.
• Don't take extensive notes on the first reading.  Instead stop at the end of each chapter to summarize in a sentence or two at the most.
• Use the journal to note questions or disagreements or agreements
• Questions should be visually different from summaries i.e. different colors/margins.
• Note page numbers
• When the first reading is done, go back and assemble your summaries into a sort of outline.
• Give the book a title and subtitle similar to the one on pg. 44.

The Well Educated Mind-Part 3

Chapter 3-- Keeping the Journal: A Written Record of New Ideas

• Isaac Watts tells us not to just read, but to meditate and study, an act that "transfers and conveys the notions and sentiments of others to ourselves, so as to make them properly our own."
• Keep a journal (commonplace book) to organize your thoughts about reading.
• (1) Jot down specific phrases, sentences, and paragraphs as you come across them, (2) when you've finished your reading, go back and write a brief summary about what you've learned, (3) and then write your own reactions, questions, and thoughts.
• Guidelines for summaries:

1. Write the title of the chapter in your notebook. Jot down ideas, phrases, or sentences that strike you.
2. Ask yourself: What is the most important point that the writer makes in this section? If I could remember only one thing from this section, what would it be? What else does the writer tell me about this important point that I'd like to remember? Make the summary for each section a separate paragraph.
3. When you have done this for the entire chapter, glance back over your summary paragraphs. Now write down your reactions to the information in each summary. (A different color is useful.)

The Well Educated Mind-Part 2

Chapter Two- Wrestling with Books: The Act of Reading

• You become informed by collecting facts-- you become enlightened when you make sense and use the facts you gather.
• Technology eases the gathering of facts but does little to simplify the gathering of wisdom.
• Reading is a life-long process-- no semester schedule.
• Serious readers are not trying to assimilate tons of info as quickly as possible but are trying to understand a few multi-faceted ideas.
• Speed reading's three rules (1) the more abstract words a passage contains, the harder it is to read quickly, (2) the fewer ideas a passage containes, the easier it is to read fast, and (3) the more prior knowledge, the easier it is to read.
• Speed reading is most useful when pure information is offered.
• Serious reading gets easier with practice.

The Well Educated Mind-Part 1

Chapter One-Training Your Own Mind: The Classical Education You Never Had

• Thomas Jefferson said to his nephew on acquiring an education in historical reading, "It is to be acquired from books, and if you pursue it by yourself, you can accomodate it to your other reading so as to fill up those chasms of time not otherwise appropriated."
• Sustained, serious reading is at the center of the self-education project.
• Reading is a discipline like running regularly, or meditating, or taking voice lessons.
• Study of literature requires different skills than reading for pleasure.
• Francis Bacon said: "Some books are to be tasted, other to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested,"
• The trivium: grammar (taste-find out the facts), logic (swallow-evaluate them), and rhetoric (digest-form your own opinion).
• "The density of ideas in Plato or Shakespeare or Thomas Hardy frustrates the mind that comes to them ready to draw conclusions."
• "To tackle a course of reading successfully, we have to retrain our minds to grasp new ideas by first understanding them, then evaluating them, and finally forming our own opinions."
• Isaac Watts: "Engage not the mind in the intense pursuit of too many things at once, especially such as have no relation to one another."
• "The first task of self-education is not the reading of Plato, but the finding of twenty minutes in which you can devote yourself to thought, rather than to activity."
• "Morning is better than evening."
• Start short-like physical exercise is to be introduced gradually.
• Don't schedule yourself for study every day--try four days a week.
• "Never check your e-mail before starting."
• "Guard your reading time."
• "Take the first step now."