Don’t Look Into the (High)lighter.

Take Notes in Your Text

• Read to learn. Read with the intent to learn (not just to finish the
assigned pages). People remember best when they have a purpose, so set
some goals for each reading session.
• Don’t rely on highlighting. Highlighting is often a passive activity
because students typically are not reading to remember; they are marking
the material so they can come back and learn it later. But in college you
have so much reading to do that you hardly have time to read the material
once, much less come back to reread. What you need to do is use a
strategy, such as text annotation, that will help you to learn as you go.
• Use text annotation. Text annotation is where you take notes in the
margins of your text—pulling out the key ideas you need to remember.
Here’s what you need to know about text annotation:
o You might want to think about annotation this way—if you had to
teach this material to a classmate, what would be important to tell
her? That is the material you should note.
o Annotation is effective because you read a few paragraphs (one
subheading if possible), think, and then write the key information
in your own words. If you find that you cannot put it in your own
words, then you just might not understand what you are reading.
You should then reread the material or ask about this topic in class.
o Annotate definitions, examples, lists or characteristics,
names/dates/events, and other important text information. Be sure
to annotate important graphs, charts, diagrams, and text boxes as
well.
o Try to condense the information as you annotate—no need to write
in full sentences. Just get the gist.
Annotated page 7/8/04 2:17 PM Page 1

Kennedy Intensifies the Cold War • 967

CONTAINING CASTRO: THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

issile crisis
Oct. 1962—Cuban m
USSR built up arms in Cuba
JFK warns Castro
BUT sites for med.
Soviets secretly built iles
and inter. range miss
Khrushchev claimed it was
defensive; not really so.
se strategic
Soviets wanted to clo and US
advantage b/t USSR
The climax of Kennedy’s crusade came in October 1962 with the Cuban
missile crisis. Throughout the summer and early fall, the Soviets engaged in
a massive arms buildup in Cuba, ostensibly to protect Castro from an
American invasion. In the United States, Republican candidates in the 1962
congressional elections called for a firm American response; Kennedy con-
tented himself with a stern warning against the introduction of any offensive
weapons, believing their presence would directly threaten American security.
Khrushchev publicly denied any such intent, but secretly he took a daring
gamble, building sites for twenty-four medium-range (1000 mile) and eight-
een intermediate range (2000 mile) missiles in Cuba. Later he claimed his
purpose was purely defensive, but most likely he was responding to the pres-
sures from his own military to close the enormous strategic gap in nuclear
striking power that Kennedy had opened.
Excerpted from: Divine, R. A., Breen, T.H., Fredrickson, G.M., & Williams, R. H.
(©2002). The American Story. NY: Longman Publishers.