4 Reasons you should be reading your English texts these holidays

It’s January and that means somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re freaking out. You might not be sitting at home during your summer holidays, writing a blog post on exams you did like 3 years ago, but it’s definitely on your mind.

So should you read your English texts during summer? It’s hot. The sun’s out. You’re trying to get your tan on and your teachers want you to spend time reading some old bloke’s text.

Plus your trials are in August. I didn’t do brilliantly in maths but I’m pretty sure that’s like… 6 or 7 months away, so surely you don’t need to read ASAP right?

But hear me out. There’s still a lot you can crush in the holidays - a perfect midpoint between all out war with English, and doing absolutely nothing.

So, here are our 4 reasons to get reading:

Why should you read?

1. Your mid-years, trials and even the HSC are closer than you think

It might only be January but hey it was 2015 like 15 minutes ago. In the blink of an eye you’ll be in March and then you’ll realise that you’ve got mid yearlies in like 4 days.

You want to have time to do interesting things and leaving everything to the last minute will be more painful than just bad marks. Reading your texts takes some time, so don’t rush yourself.

Start early and let the good times roll.

2. It’s easier to study in chunks

Trust me, you never want to be learning content close to the exam. It’s stressful and ugly.

By reading your English texts early on you’ll get thinking about what they’re about. And this means you can pick a related text earlier, you can have ideas earlier and, by the time you get back to school, your mind is suddenly in tune with what the teacher’s saying and a rock solid thesis is only a couple of weeks away.

Then suddenly you start thinking… hey, maybe those curtains aren’t just blue after all! Things fall into place when you’re doing the right reading over the summer holidays.

Simple.

3. Make it easier on yourself

Doing the work now means you don’t have to do it later. Plus, English is one of those things you can do at your own pace and at your own leisure over the holidays… I don’t know about you but I don’t see anyone conducting science experiments or studying ancient pottery at the beach when the waves are pumping and it’s absolutely sizzling.

It’s really not that hard to read while you’re soaking up sun at the beach, or taking 2 hours to watch a movie because you’ve got nothing else to do. Heck, I even saw Metropolis on Netflix a while back.

It’s an easy form of studying so you can breeze through it and still convince yourself that you’re studying hard and ‘being productive.’

4. Get ahead of the competition

Let’s face it, not every one of you will take my advice (please do). But for those that are loyal followers, just think about all the people you’re getting ahead of. Think about all the people who will be battling once exams come around. And then think about where you’ll be.

You’ll have read your texts. You’ll have HSC Hub-ed them. Learned them. Inside and out. And in just a few hours of work, you’re streets ahead.

Sorted.

Alright then how do you do it?

I’m going to go ahead and assume that if you’re still reading you agree with me (I’m really stoked guys).

Skimmers are winners

But here’s a big tip. Don’t stress yourself out over it. Just skim the texts, see what sounds interesting and what doesn’t. Often in English, the things that sound interesting are valuable bits of evidence, or important parts of the story where you can find heaps of cool info for your essay.

You’ll be surprised how much you can get from a book by just skimming it. If I could think of an analogy I would, but I’m just too mind-blown by the concept of being able to skim texts and that being valuable.

I mean if you really enjoy the texts then by all means go ahead and read and theorise intensely about the text but considering that usually only concerns like 15 people out of 80,000 in the state, I’ll take a swing and say you’re not going to do that.

That’s all you need to do, so go out there, soak up some sun, pull out the Motorcycle Diaries, 1984 or whatever tickles your fancy, and kill it.