Brief note on Note Taking and Some Samples: First: read a section of your textbook chapter

Read just enough to keep an understanding of the material. Do not take notes, but rather focus on understanding the material. It is tempting to take notes as you are reading the first time, but this is not an efficient technique: you are likely to take down too much information and simply copy without understanding Second: Review the material

Locate the main ideas, as well as important sub-points Set the book aside Paraphrase this information: Putting the textbook information in your own words forces you to become actively involved with the material Third: write the paraphrased ideas as your notes

Do not copy information directly from the textbook Add only enough detail to understand

Reading skills for academic study: Note-taking

Exercise 1
Read the following text and make notes.
COFFEE AND ITS PROCESSING The coffee plant, an evergreen shrub or small tree of African origin, begins to produce fruit 3 or 4 years after being planted. The fruit is hand-gathered when it is fully ripe and a reddish purple in colour. The ripened fruits of the coffee shrubs are processed where they are produced to separate the coffee seeds from their covering and from the pulp. Two different techniques are in use: a wet process and a dry process. The wet process First the fresh fruit is pulped by a pulping machine. Some pulp still clings to the coffee, however, and this residue is removed by fermentation in tanks. The few remaining traces of pulp are then removed by washing. The coffee seeds are then dried to a moisture content of about 12 per cent either by exposure to the sun or by hot-air driers. If dried in the sun, they must be turned by hand several times a day for even drying. The dry process In the dry process the fruits are immediately placed to dry either in the sun or in hot-air driers. Considerably more time and equipment is needed for drying than in the wet process. When the fruits have been dried to a water content of about 12 per cent the seeds are mechanically freed from their coverings. The characteristic aroma and taste of coffee only appear later and are developed by the high temperatures to which they are subjected during the course of the process known as roasting. Temperatures are raised progressively to about 220-230C. This releases steam, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other volatiles

from the beans, resulting in a loss of weight of between 14 and 23 per cent. Internal pressure of gas expands the volume of the coffee seeds from 30 to 100 per cent. The seeds become rich brown in colour; their texture becomes porous and crumbly under pressure. But the most important phenomenon of roasting is the appearance of the characteristic aroma of coffee, which arises from very complex chemical transformations within the beans. The coffee, on leaving the industrial roasters, is rapidly cooled in a vat where it is stirred and subjected to cold air propelled by a blower. Good quality coffees are then sorted by electronic sorters to eliminate the seeds that roasted badly. The presence of seeds which are either too light or too dark depreciates the quality.

Suggested answer.
COFFEE AND ITS PROCESSING coffee plant

evergreen shrub / small tree from Africa fruits after 3/4 years fruit - red/purple

gathered by hand processed to separate seeds from covering - two processes used 1. wet process

fruit pulped by machine + fermentation in tanks + washing seeds dried to 12% moisture by sun or hot air driers need to be turned by hand dried immediately in sun or with driers

2. dry process

when dried to 12% seeds freed from coverings

roasting at 220230 oC

releases gases etc - loss of weight, increases volume, aroma and taste develop become rich brown in colour, texture becomes porous

finally sorted

Exercise 2

HOW CHILDREN FAIL Most children in school fail. For a great many this failure is avowed and absolute. Close to forty per cent of those who begin high school drop out before they finish. For college the figure is one in three. Many others fail in fact if not in name. They complete their schooling only because we have agreed to push them up through the grades and out of the schools, whether they know anything or not. There are many more such children than we think. If we 'raise our standards' much higher, as some would have us do, we will find out very soon just how many there are. Our classrooms will bulge with kids who can't pass the test to get into the next class. But there is a more important sense in which almost all children fail: except for a handful, who may or may not be good students, they fail to develop more than a tiny part of the tremendous capacity for learning, understanding, and creating with which they were born and of which they made full use during the first two or three years of their lives. Why do they fail? They fail because they are afraid, bored, and confused. They are afraid, above all else, of failing, of disappointing or displeasing the many anxious adults around them, whose limitless hopes and expectations for them hang over their heads like a cloud. They are bored because the things they are given and told to do in school are so trivial, so dull, and make such limited and narrow demands on the wide spectrum of their intelligence, capabilities, and talents. They are confused because most of the torrent of words that pours over them in school makes little or no sense. It often flatly contradicts other things they have been told, and hardly ever has any relation to what they really know - to the rough model of reality that they carry around in their minds.

How does this mass failure take place? What really goes on in the classroom? What are these children who fail doing? What goes on in their heads? Why don't they make use of more of their capacity? This book is the rough and partial record of a search for answers to these questions. It began as a series of memos written in the evenings to my colleague and friend Bill Hull, whose fifth-grade class I observed and taught in during the day. Later these memos were sent to other interested teachers and parents. A small number of these memos make up this book. They have not been much rewritten, but they have been edited and rearranged under four major topics: Strategy; Fear and Failure; Real Learning; and How Schools Fail. Strategy deals with the ways in which children try to meet, or dodge, the demands that adults make on them in school. Fear and Failure deals with the interaction in children of fear and failure, and the effect of this on strategy and learning. Real Learning deals with the difference between what children appear to know or are expected to know, and what they really know. How Schools Fail analyses the ways in which schools foster bad strategies, raise children's fears, produce learning which is usually fragmentary, distorted, and short-lived, and generally fail to meet the real needs of children. These four topics are clearly not exclusive. They tend to overlap and blend into each other. They are, at most, different ways of looking at and thinking about the thinking and behaviour of children. It must be made clear that the book is not about unusually bad schools or backward children. The schools in which the experiences described here took place are private schools of the highest standards and reputation. With very few exceptions, the children whose work is described are well above the average in intelligence and are, to all outward appearances, successful, and on their way to 'good' secondary schools and colleges. Friends and colleagues, who understand what I am trying to say about the harmful effect of today's schooling on the character and intellect of children, and who have visited many more schools than I have, tell me that the schools I have not seen are not a bit better than those I have, and very often are worse.

Suggested answer.
HOW CHILDREN FAIL Most children in school fail.
o o o o

High School - forty per cent College - thirty three per cent. Others in fact if not name - complete because pushed, know anything??? But, more importantly, fail to develop full capacity for learning.

Why ? Fail because: afraid, bored, and confused.

o o o

afraid of failing, disappointing adults bored because they given trivial, dull, things to do confused because most of school makes little or no sense, flatly contradicts other things , no relation to what they really know

How? Search for answers to questions:

o o o o

Strategy - ways in which children try to meet, or dodge, the demands made on them Fear and Failure - interaction in children of fear and failure, + effect on strategy and learning. Real Learning - compares what children appear to know with what really know. How Schools Fail - ways: schools foster bad strategies; raise children's fears; produce fragmentary, distorted & shortlived learning; fail to meet real needs

Exercise Read the following paragraph and make notes.

As a senior at Patrick Henry High School, Ive noticed that the greatest problem facing public schools is large class size. For the past three years, certain circumstances have allowed me to attend smaller classes in English and history. Now the pilot program is over, and I am once again enrolled in regular-size classes. Comparing the former experience with my current situation, in which my English class is comprised of more than 40 students, the advantages of smaller classes become readily apparent. In my current English class, effective teaching and learning have been sacrificed to the administrative advantage of fewer classes holding greater numbers of students. Although in terms of test scores the class has been deemed successful, student participation in such a large class is limited to a select few; individual conferences with the teacher are hard to get due to the sheer number of students; and papers take weeks to get graded. In smaller classes, however, it has been my experience that all students participate, classes are more focused and on task, and the teacher develops a closer relationship to the students. These factors allow students to learn and develop their abilities. They also allow teachers to effectively critique their students' work. Moreover, in small classes, students can develop working relationships with one anothera camaraderie nonexistent in larger classes. If the public school system were to cut class size in half, to approximately 15 to 20 students each, the benefits would manifest themselves immediately. If we wish to improve the level of education in public schools today, we must reduce class size.