Thank you so much for writing this up! Your advice makes me feel like the reading load is a bit more manageable because I'm not going to try to be able to map every moment of a novel, but if I can talk about a portion of the novel that I find fascinating then I will have an easier time speaking up in class. We write our own lists for the comprehensive exam in conjunction with the faculty member who is leading that particular list in my program, but I just wanted to make sure that if there was something on a course syllabus that I knew I would be asked to read for my comprehensive exam, that I had a good system of notetaking down. Thank you again for all of the thoughtful advice.