1. Read each assignment from the "outside - in": Read the introduction, then the conclusion, then, go back and rapidly read the body of the text.
2. Practice active reading: don't just highlight text; interact with it by making marginal notes for yourself and by creating your own index of passages to return to in the blank pages at the front or back or on the inside covers.
3. Analyze ("take it apart") - break it down into smaller, essential components.
4. Synthesize ("put it back together again") - in a way that makes sense to YOU.
5. Interact with your reading: find ways to make the author's "text" part of your own "text," your own store of life experience.
6. As you read, practice the art of educated guessing (inference): based on what you know at any given moment, try to anticipate where the author may be taking you.
7. Pay special attention to paradoxes (phenomena that seem to contain contradictions) and ironies (incongruities between what we expect to happen and what actually does happen). These features abound in life and make reading about the human experience exciting, compelling, and fun.
See also "How to Take Notes on Readings".