Annotating / Talking
to the Text
Reading is one thing, but getting something of value from what we have read is another. When we take up a text, we are engaging in a conversation with the author, with others, and with ourselves. Yet, so much of what takes place in the classroom isolates reading so that true, authentic, and meaningful interactions with a text are sometimes ignored.
Reading is one thing, but getting something of value from what we have read is another. When we take up a text, we are engaging in a conversation with the author, with others, and with ourselves. Yet, so much of what takes place in the classroom isolates reading so that true, authentic, and meaningful interactions with a text are sometimes ignored.
I desire to have students enter into a conversation with the text they are reading.
I desire to have students enter into a conversation with the text they are reading.
NCTE Article: Matthew Brown
Thinking Strategies - Annotating Talking to the Text.pdf
AnnotationGuide.pdfDigging Deeper Into Annotation
Digging Deeper Into Annotation
In an article on annotation, the author, Matthew Brown, talks about an initial exercise he does with students where they analyze a 'professional' text where someone has already done the annotations in order to provide support to the reader (e.g., a Shakespeare text). His students are asked to generate a list of what the annotations do. Here's an example of their list:
- give definitions to difficult and unfamiliar words;
- give background information, especially explaining customs, traditions, and ways of living that may be unfamiliar to us;
- help explain what is going on in the text;
- make connections to other texts;
- point out the use of literary techniques and how they add meaning to the text;
- can use humor; and
- reveal that the writer of these annotations knows his or her reader.
Following some further discussions about why we read, his students are then ready to launch into creating annotations for themselves.
5-point_annotation_rubric