Reading & Note-taking Strategy

The official briefing slides say: "careful / repeated reading is necessary" and "jot notes while reading". This page tells you exactly how — using a 3-pass method that has worked for SBA students for years.

The 3-pass reading method

For each story (Macbeth · Romeo · Merchant), read three times:

Pass	Goal	Time	What you do
Pass 1	Get the plot	20 min	Read once, no notes, no dictionary. Just absorb the story.
Pass 2	Understand the characters & themes	30 min	Re-read with a highlighter. Mark 5 key moments per story.
Pass 3	Extract talking points	20 min	Skim quickly. Fill in your Story Note Sheet (template below).

Total per story: ~70 min. Across 3 stories: ~3.5 hours of focused reading.

Pass 1: read for plot

• Read the whole story straight through without stopping.
• Do not look up words you don't know.
• Goal: at the end you should be able to tell a friend the plot in 2 minutes.
• After reading, close the booklet and try this 30-second test:

  "What's it about? Who's the main character? What do they want? What goes wrong? How does it end?"

• If you can answer all five out loud, move to Pass 2. If not, read it again.

Pass 2: read for character & theme

Use only two highlighter colours:

• 🟡 Yellow for character moments (what a person says, decides, regrets).
• 🟢 Green for big theme moments (ambition, love, guilt, justice — see your story page).

⚠️ Don't highlight everything. 5 yellow + 5 green = 10 highlights per story. More than that and your eye won't catch the important ones later.

Example (Macbeth, P.1):

• 🟡 "The third witch called me, King that is to be." — Macbeth's first sign of temptation
• 🟢 "Would you live a coward?" — Lady Macbeth uses gender to push him into murder

Pass 3: fill in the Story Note Sheet

Use this template (one per story). Spend 20 min per book.

=== STORY NOTE SHEET ===

Title: __________________________ Pages: ____

Plot in 3 sentences:
1. _____________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________

Top 3 characters & one-line each:
- __________________ → ___________________________
- __________________ → ___________________________
- __________________ → ___________________________

Top 3 themes:
- __________________________________
- __________________________________
- __________________________________

Top 3 quotes (with page number):
- "________________________________" (P. __)
- "________________________________" (P. __)
- "________________________________" (P. __)

One modern parallel:
______________________________________________

One question this story makes me ask:
______________________________________________

Print this three times (one per story). These become the heart of your Logbook.

Note-taking inside your Logbook

The briefing says you can bring your SBA Logbook with "notes in point form". That's important — full sentences are penalised.

Good Logbook page (allowed)

MACBETH — main character
- starts loyal, ends tyrant
- catalyst = witches + Lady M
- key moment: P.2 "Sleep no more"
- guilt → mental collapse
- compare: corporate CEOs / political leaders

Bad Logbook page (penalised)

Macbeth is a brave Scottish general who at the start of the play
is loyal to King Duncan, but he meets three witches on a heath
who tell him that he will become King of Scotland, and after his
wife Lady Macbeth encourages him with the words "Would you live
a coward?" he murders King Duncan in his sleep, after which he
hears voices that say "Sleep no more!" and his life slowly falls
apart as the guilt destroys both him and his wife…

Why this is bad: you'll read it word for word under pressure, get docked to 3 marks, and run out of time.

How to annotate the printed booklet

You're allowed to bring your annotated booklet. Annotate it lightly:

• Margin notes: one word per scene ("ambition", "guilt", "trial", "lead casket").
• Page-top theme tags: write the 1–2 dominant themes at the top.
• Page-bottom modern link: write one sentence connecting it to today.

Example margin annotation for Macbeth P.2:

• Top of page: Themes: Manipulation · Ambition
• Margin next to "Would you live a coward?": ➜ gender, peer pressure
• Bottom of page: Modern link: workplace bullying — "be a real man" pressure

What to read after the booklet

You don't need to read the original Shakespeare plays. The Nesbit retelling is what the SBA tests.

If you have extra time, useful (optional) supplements:

1. YouTube: "Crash Course Literature — Macbeth / Romeo and Juliet / Merchant of Venice" by John Green (15 min each — excellent overviews).
2. Sparknotes "no fear" — only for unfamiliar idioms, never for full plot.
3. A 30-min adaptation film of each play (just to visualise the characters).

Don't quote the original Shakespeare in your SBA

You'll trip over the "thou", "wherefore", "doth" — and the examiner is grading you on your English, not memorised Elizabethan. Stick with Nesbit's modern prose.

How to remember character names

Make a memory hook for each:

Character	Memory hook
Macbeth	"Mac-BETTING" — he bets everything on the witches
Banquo	"Bank-oh!" — Macbeth's friend, with a son who banks the future of kings
Macduff	"Mac-TOUGH" — the man who kills Macbeth
Duncan	"Done-can" — done in (murdered) the can-do king
Tybalt	"Tib-BOLT" — a bolt of anger, hot-headed
Mercutio	"Mer-CUTE-eo" — the cute, witty friend
Bassanio	"Bah-SAH-nee-oh" — Antonio's "baby" friend who needs money
Portia	"POR-shə" — like the car brand — sharp, fast, brilliant
Shylock	"SHY-lock" — locks up his money shyly (but doesn't actually share)
Antonio	"An-TOE-nee-oh" — the merchant willing to risk his toe (well, pound of flesh)

When you've finished all three stories

You should now have:

• [ ] 3× completed Story Note Sheets
• [ ] 1× annotated booklet (margin notes only)
• [ ] 1× decision: which book(s) to focus on → see How to Choose
• [ ] 1× draft notecard → see Notecard Template

Then move on to Group Practice Plan.

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Reading checklist (tick as you go)

• [ ] Macbeth read 3×
• [ ] Romeo and Juliet read 3×
• [ ] The Merchant of Venice read 3×
• [ ] Story Note Sheet for each story
• [ ] Booklet annotated (light margin notes)
• [ ] Logbook updated (point-form only)
• [ ] Decided: my main book is ____ ; backup is ____