When I was in the process of doing them, most of the time reading logs felt like a huge pain in the neck. If the topic was something I wasn’t particularly passionate about, it was really hard for me to want to reflect on the article I just read. However, if it was a topic that I didn’t mind reading about – like the Women of the Fur Trade* or Charivaris**, I found it a lot easier to focus and get a good grasp on the topic as well as the authors’ interpretations on the topic based on the sources they had chosen to reflect on. Looking back on each reading log I’d done this semester, I realized that they weren’t all that bad. Yes, reading the articles took some time and some felt unbearably long, but in the end I think it’s safe to say that I benefited from them more than I lost. The only thing I may have lost at all is time, but for what it’s worth it wasn’t that bad.
With reading logs, I learned how to think critically; not just historically. I learned how to take something as short as a sentence and create my own interpretation of what is meant by it. It taught me how to dig deeper into a piece of writing and gain a new perspective on the topic. Sometimes the view was positive, sometimes it was negative, and others I found shocking to discover – such as the Beothuk*** and their short existence (and why they went extinct) or slavery in Upper Canada****. I will be able to take the tools I acquired in doing reading logs and apply them to other aspects of life. In becoming a high school counselor, I will need to learn how to think critically and deeply. I will be required to create reason and a remedy based on my interpretation of what I am counselling for at the time. This history class was a gateway for me for thinking critically, which is something I didn’t really know how to do before. Reading logs were the perfect way for me to start learning how to think deeper about a topic and acknowledge mine and other people’s views on something, and the tools I learned I will carry with me for a very long time.
*Read Reading Log Here: Women in the Fur Trade in New France