Even though I've taken other Philosophy
classes, I still have difficulty reading &
trying to understand Descartes -- I think a
lot of it is that his sentences are a mile
long!

There's a really cool book (which I
unfortunately don't have) by Christopher
Biffle that's called something like
_Descartes: A Guided Tour_ (maybe the
LCC or public library has it?) This book
helps you look at the Meditations in very
small pieces, starting with parts of
sentences. If you start with little tiny bites
and then really think about (or actually
write out, which helps a lot of people)
"What's he trying to say here? What does
he really mean? How might his message
be stated in modern language?"

For me, printing out readings and
highlighting *just a little* ( it can be easy
to overdo it!) and writing notes in the
margin (even if it's just "eh?" when I just
don't get it) helps me concentrate on the
reading and pay attention and get into it. I
also can't read too much at one time
when it's dense writing like Descartes
--sometimes just a paragraph or two at a
time. Even when I don't understand, I try to
keep going. And I always read the
material at least twice, often more. It
takes some time, but it's worth it for me to
really understand the stuff.