Now that you’ve read about what a double-entry journal can do for you, let’s put it into practice!

As you read “Chapter 7” from the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass and “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X, take note of sections of each that stand out to you. Try to make a note in the margin as you read to remember why it stood out to you.

When you finish reading, start building our double-entry journal. Don’t worry about working in columns, since you’ll write your work here in the comments on this post.

For Douglass’s narrative, choose a passage from one of the readings, and copy it into a comment. Then in your own words, write a paragraph about what is happening in the passage, and how you relate to it–you might want to ask yourself how it is familiar and unfamiliar to you.

Repeat the process, choosing a passage from “Learning to Read,” copying it into a comment, and writing a paragraph about what’s happening in the passage and how you relate to it.

We’ll end up building a substantial and informative double-entry journal for each of these two narratives–that’s the power of crowd-sourcing!