Raising the Level of Annotating Texts Lesson Ten Raising the Level of Annotating Texts

Why do you mark up an article? When you annotate—or mark up– a text, this should help you remember the author’s big ideas, as well as what you were thinking when you read the text. Article on Harvard’s Website ‘Annotating puts you actively and immediately in a “dialogue” with an author and the issues and ideas you encounter in a written text. It’s also a way to have an ongoing conversation with yourself as you move through the text and record what the encounter was like for you. Highlighting is not the best strategy. Instead, you should ‘mark up the margins of your text with words and phrases’—things that seem important, ideas that occur to you, questions, connections to other texts or issues.

Teaching Point! Today I want to teach you that readers mark up a text in a purposeful and deliberate way, to help them remember the big ideas of the text, as well as things they were thinking when they read it. The annotations that readers make should help them use that text in conversation.

Which method of annotating will be more helpful to the reader? Why?

Let’s try it! New York Times article by Kim Severson on chocolate milk in schools. First time, read it without annotating because you need to figure out the main ideas. The second time through, annotate. Goal: to remember to main idea/ big points of the article and remember what you were thinking as you read it.

Your job today is… To try to annotate a text from your set. Remember that annotating should not take you away from your reading too much.