Responding to Readings

Have you ever read an assignment and, as you reached the final paragraph, struggled to remember any worthwhile details about what you just read? 🙈 It’s a familiar and frustrating problem, to be sure.

It helps to have some active questions in mind to engage you while reading, so I ask students to bring their Quotations-Comments-Questions (or Q-C-Q, for short) in response to any class readings. As you read any articles assigned as part of this course, be prepared to take notes and jot down quotes from the article that feel important to you. Then, use that note taking as an opportunity to ask yourself some additional questions:

• Why does this seem significant?
• What does this make you think of?
• Do you agree or disagree and why?
• Is it surprising and why or why not?

Also take note of what’s unknown or confusing:

• Is there something here you do not understand (words, ideas, etc.)?
• Is there a question you would like to pose to the author?
• Does the quotation make you question any ideas or assumptions?

When you finish a reading assignment using this note-taking tool, you end up with not only a list of important quotes from the reading, but also some of your thinking about those ideas.

✍️ If it helps you, I have an example Q-C-Q Worksheet that you can make a copy of and use for your notes. (Just want to see the worksheet without making your own copy? Preview the worksheet)

This text and worksheet adapted from From Reading to Writing: Quotation-Comment-Question (Q-C-Q).