Reading-intensive courses are like a football game. The readings are opposing players coming at you from all directions simultaneously, and the goal is to avoid being tackled to get to the end zone: understanding the content. Don’t let your readings overwhelm you. Instead, learn how to tackle them. Like football, reading-intensive courses require a careful strategic approach and team effort.
“Everybody has different ways of learning and reading,” history professor Judy Coffin said. “Some people love to write lots of stuff in the margins, and others don’t. Be strategic. Ask your professor how to read a certain text.”
As a philosophy student, I’ve had to hone my reading skills. Every week, I have hundreds of pages to read and dense material to comprehend. I keep an agenda to remind me of readings, break my readings into smaller chunks for each day, get together with my study groups at coffee shops to discuss the material, go to office hours and read summaries and explanations online. I find it helpful to highlight important points and sometimes write a few words on the margins to remind myself of specific ideas or connections. Rereading a second time also helps clarify the material.
Moreover, it’s important to embrace perplexity. You won’t always understand what’s going on, and that’s fine. Even when I feel like I’m not absorbing or understanding any of the information, I keep reading and wait until the professor or teaching assistants explain it in class. This helps students gain a deeper understanding of the topic.
“I’ll just try and force myself through the reading and be okay with not understanding everything, especially the first time I read it,” philosophy junior Jake Craige said. “It’s very easy to get stuck on (understanding), especially with super complex readings. And I think just recognizing that I’m not going to understand everything the first time, or maybe not even the second time (helps).”
A common misconception is that reading comprehension means understanding every word on a page. The truth is, you don’t need to grasp every detail. Instead, focus on the main ideas and learn to contextualize the type of information being put forth by the author.
“Just keep going,” Coffin said. “Keep turning the pages. It doesn’t matter if you get it all the first time around. Some parts you’ll go back to if you’re studying for a test or writing a paper. Some parts you’ll go back to because the professor will talk about it in class. Once you learn to recognize those, then you can read really efficiently. ”
With a strategic approach that involves patience and practice, you can push your readings into the end zone and score a touchdown.
Mendoza is a philosophy junior from El Paso, Texas.
