I tend to think of the chief value of discussions in C&T as the process—the practice in thinking and speaking about what you have read and seen. But, along the way, discussions produce many valuable things—details of the material under discussion, insights into what it may mean, ideas it suggests. You may find it useful to have a record of these things for a number of reasons, but the greatest value of such a record is probably as a source of material for your papers and as an aid to your recollection of many different things we will have discussed by the time you reach the final.
For these reasons, I would encourage you to always take notes for your own purposes, but it can be hard to do that when you are actively involved in a discussion, and it can be especially hard to get down your own contributions. That’s why we will have a designated note-taker for each discussion. When you are playing that role, you should think what you would like to have on paper as a record of the discussion and work to provide that for the whole class.
People will make different judgments about what should be in the notes, and there are likely to be differences in the notes that they take. I encourage you to look over the notes as they become available for ideas about what you might do when you take notes, but here are a few suggestions to get you started.
• Get down references to passages that are mentioned at the beginning and during the course of the discussion (and don’t hesitate to break in to ask people for references if they didn’t give them or your weren’t able to get them down initially).
• Note interesting questions whether or not they are answered and even if they don’t lead to further discussion.
• Watch for ideas, distinctive perspectives on the material under discussion, and issues about which people disagree. In the latter case, try to sketch the arguments on both sides.
I don’t expect you to record everything of these sorts that occurs in the course of a discussion, and you certainly should not attempt to transcribe the whole discussion. Aim for about a page or so of notes. While there is likely to be more that is worth recording, it may be hard to get down much more and it will be hard for people to make use of more extensive notes, particularly in studying for the final.
I’ll ask you to send these to me in electronic form (as an e-mail attachment, in the Blackboard drop box, or even in the body of an e-mail message). I will process them and post them on the web site. There is no specific deadline, but don’t let writing up your notes go too long; I’m likely to start checking on them if I haven’t heard something within a week after the class.