There’s got to be a better way to prepare for class

by Corey Robin on October 14, 2014

There’s got to be a better way to prep for class. First I read the assigned text, taking notes while I’m reading either in the back of the book or, when space runs out, in a little pocket notebook that I carry. Then I read through those notes, highlighting specific passages or commentary that might be relevant for lecture and discussion. Then I re-type some (hopefully more coherent) version of those highlighted notes in a Word file, organizing them in some kind of thematic fashion or outline. (Sometimes I divide that step up into two: first, I retype all the highlighted notes in a Word file; then I organize those notes into outline form in a new Word file.) Once I have some basic sense of the themes I’ll be talking about and the passages I want to focus on, I prepare my lecture (whether it’s a grad seminar or an undergrad class, I always do some interwoven combination of lecture and discussion). All the while I’m trying to do some secondary reading to help me figure out what the hell is going on in or around the text. There’s got to be a better way to prep for class.