- Jan 2024
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Local file Local file
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This is why choosing an external system that forces us todeliberate practice and confronts us as much as possible with ourlack of understanding or not-yet-learned information is such a smartmove.
Choosing an external system for knowledge keeping and production forces the learner into a deliberate practice and confronts them with their lack of understanding. This is a large part of the underlying value not only of the zettelkasten, but of the use of a commonplace book which Benjamin Franklin was getting at when recommending that one "read with a pen in your hand". The external system also creates a modality shift from reading to writing by way of thinking which further underlines the value.
What other building blocks are present in addition to: - modality shift - deliberate practice - confrontation of lack of understanding
Are there other systems that do all of these as well as others simultaneously?
link to Franklin quote: https://hypothes.is/a/HZeDKI3YEeyj9GcNWKX4iA
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- Oct 2023
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danallosso.substack.com danallosso.substack.com
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I'm not so much saying Adler and Van Doren were trying to prevent readers from coming to grips with the unresolved issues of American history illustrated in this example. But I am suggesting that the idea that there's a "message" in these foundational texts and they know what it is and our job is to find out, is flawed. Too deterministic, too hierarchical, too supportive of a master narrative that needs to be challenged so truth can be appreciated in its complexity.
Amen!
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- Sep 2023
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proof of effort: How can teachers know that students have done the work?
Hypothes.is is an example of a tool which shows reading effort.
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- Nov 2022
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delong.typepad.com delong.typepad.com
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the front endpapers are oftenthe most important. Some people reserve them for a fancybookplate.
Adler and Van Doren indicate that outlining the arguments and structure of a book on its endpapers is a better and higher measurement of one's ownership of a text compared to a bookplate which only indicates the lower level of "financial" ownership.
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Second, reading, if it is active, is thinking, and thinking tendsto express itself in words, spoken or written. The person whosays he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually doesnot know what he thinks.
Active reading is thinking, and thinking requires expression which can come in many forms including both spoken and written ones.
I like that he acknowledges that expression (and thus thinking) can be done in both oral or written forms.
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The tremendous pleasure that can come from readingShakespeare, for instance, was spoiled for generations of highschool students who were forced to go through Julius Caesar,As You Like It, or Hamlet, scene by scene, looking up all thestrange words in a glossary and studying all the scholarly footnotes. As a result, they never really read a Shakespearean play.
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The answer lies in an important and helpful rule of reading that is generally overlooked.That rule is simply this: In tackling a difficult book for the firsttime, read it through without ever stopping to look up orponder the things you do not understand right away.
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- Oct 2022
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Local file Local file
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the author must not merely articulate his sources; he mustdigest them. A long passage quoted or closely followed "remainsan undigested bit of foreign matter." "Over quotation may meanunder thought."
relatable to: https://hypothes.is/a/wIyvtm0oEeyNypNtc--Clw
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delong.typepad.com delong.typepad.com
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. The goal a reader seeks-be itentertainment, information or understanding-determines theway he reads.
There are three goals of most reading: education, information, and understanding.
Are there others we're missing here?
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Local file Local file
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Sincecopying is a chore and a bore, use of the cards, the smaller thebetter, forces one to extract the strictly relevant, to distill from thevery beginning, to pass the material through the grinder of one’s ownmind, so to speak.
Barbara Tuchman recommended using the smallest sized index cards possible to force one only to "extract the strictly relevant" because copying by hand can be both "a chore and a bore".
In the same address in 1963, she encourages "distill[ing] from the very beginning, to pass the material through the grinder of one's own mind, so to speak." This practice is similar to modern day pedagogues who encourage this practice, but with the benefit of psychology research to back up the practice.
This advice is two-fold in terms of filtering out the useless material for an author, but the grinder metaphor indicates placing multiple types of material in to to a processor to see what new combinations of products come out the other end. This touches more subtly on the idea of combinatorial creativity encouraged by Raymond Llull, Matt Ridley, et al. or the serendipity described by Niklas Luhmann and others.
When did the writing for understanding idea begin within the tradition? Was it through experience in part and then underlined with psychology research? Visit Ahrens' references on this for particular papers to read.
Link to modality shift research.
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