[Week 8] Reading Diary - Self-Assessment

In the beginning, I wanted to write pretty detailed diary posts. I set out to write down the names of all the main characters and to give a little bit of info on each of them. As I started to write my notes, though, I realized it would take far too much time to do that while reading. So instead, I’ve started taking down notes as quickly as I can without losing too much detail. The length and style of note-taking really depends on the kind of story I’m reading. If there are a lot of shorter stories I won’t take as many notes, but if they’re longer and more detailed then I’ll try to get some of the smaller things in there too. It seems that the shorter stories tend to be more focused on one lesson so it’s easy give a little summary of them.

Lately I’ve been switching back and forth between writing paragraphs and taking notes. Paragraphs are nice because I can read the story and then write everything out all in one. If it’s longer or if I get overwhelmed for some reason, I tend to use bullet points. That way I can read a section and then summarize it while it’s fresh in my mind. With either style, I tend to feel like I go overboard on my note taking. I thought that I would need to take longer notes in order to do my storytelling assignment. Instead, I’ve found that inspiration doesn’t come from the notes I take, it comes from the story itself. So while I’m reading something will pop out at me and I’ll go, “I want to do this!” and I keep it in my mind for later. If I need a reminder of how the story goes, I can usually just read the first sentence of my notes and remember what happened.


I think from now on I’ll try to make my notes more concise. I haven’t been concerning myself with things like grammar since this is just for me, but if I made them concise and focused on grammar I think I’d be exercising my writing muscles and saving time at the same time. I also want to start adding pictures. I did it for a few of the posts but it kind of dwindled off because I get so tired of mindlessly taking notes. I need to make it more interesting!