It can be a fun way to engage in an activity that many students find to be a burden.
#Close reading and annotating code#
Plus, it’s fun to create a secret code that no one else will understand. Quick sketches can be a great way to annotate, and a system of symbols can be a quick way to have kids annotate certain things that they will see repeatedly. Draw pictures and/or symbolsĪnnotations don’t always have to be words. This is a record of the ability of reading to enlarge our world and get us thinking. When they read To Kill A Mockingbird we want them to be outraged at the injustice while also recognizing that it still exists today.
When students read Frankenstein we want them to be thinking about all the different ways that science can cross moral and ethical boundaries. We would know they were actively reading and making the book their own by fostering deep connections to their experiences. Why this is important: If students ONLY did this for annotation, we would be in good shape. And her use of what would commonly be called profanity and she never would have used in a paper, indicated that she saw this as a place where she could speak freely in her own voice. One of my favorite annotations of all time was one from a student who wrote “What a bitch.” about Caroline Bingley in the margins of Pride and Prejudice. Here’s someone who connected so deeply with the story that she thought of her as an actual character. What does this text remind you of in your own life? In other texts? In popular culture and current events? What are your opinions about what the characters are doing and what happens to them? It’s important for students to know the difference and be able to hold uncertainty as they read. Sometimes the author doesn’t want you to know. Sometimes answering questions is essential for understanding what’s going on. What questions do you have about the text? Are these questions we should know the answer to? What questions do you have that prevent you from going further?Īsking questions also teaches kids to pay attention to when they get stuck and what strategies they can then use to move forward. This can be a powerful strategy to bring to class the following day. Why this is important: at a really basic level, this strategy allows students to come to class with something to contribute: pose your question and get an answer. Students can ask questions like the following: Where are you confused? Where might you have to reread? What guesses can you make about what will happen next? Here are 5 things that we can ask students to do while they annotate and why those strategies are important. However, students may not know what they should be thinking about when they read, or need some help making those things explicit. In order to contribute to the conversation I need to be making some notes along the way so that I have something important to say.Īnnotation is thinking made visible.
While it’s basically a pleasure read for me, I’ll also be discussing it with other teachers in a few weeks. This summer I’m reading Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao for an AP summer reading club. Most of our students come to us used to reading books for pleasure without a pencil in hand (that is, if they read at all.) And if reading is a lifelong habit, this is what we should be doing with books 90% of the time.īut in an academic setting, we might be asked to do something else with them: writing a paper, participating in an online discussion, or many other tasks that require us to think differently about the book than if we simply read for pleasure. Annotation is a valuable skill, but it’s not one that comes naturally.
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