1. RULES OF NOTICE
Annotating Texts

2. Using the Rules of Notice to guide you, annotate a passage from your book. It should be at least 20 lines long. Copy the passage carefully into your notebook using your pen double-spaced. Title the passage “Rules of Notice” along with the name of your novel and page(s) number the passage came from.

3. Annotate the Passage Reading and Viewing
What is important about this passage? Why this passage is “something to be noticed”?
Rules of
Notice
Reading is
Thinking
Reading
and
Viewing
What are you thinking when you read this passage? Questions, connections, definitions, visualizations, statements, etc…
What does this passage show you about the setting, plot, characters, theme, literary devices, etc…
Elements of Fiction

4. What to Include… Can you put “annotating” in your own words?
Passage from your book – why important?
Reflection:
What realization or deeper understanding about your book did you come to from doing your close reading?
Thinking of this passage, and of your book as a hold, answer the following question: How does this story help you to make sense of the world?

5. Level 1- External from your brain
Titles, Beginnings, Endings
Repetition
Comparison/Contrast
Font Size
Unexpected Events
Character Response
Visuals – Graphic depictions

6. Level 2 – Your Personal Thinking
1st read thoughts and impressions
Questions
Connections
Predictions
Inferences (including cause/effect)
Patterns and Motifs

7. Level 3 (Def-Con 3!) Highest Alert Level – Brain must be ready!!
Notice story structure and elements of fiction
Conflict and complications
Character (development and Characteristics
Rising Action (plot development)
Climax
Author Technique
Figurative Language (especially poetry) (Ex. Irony, symbolism, foreshadowing, metaphor)
Overall “function” of the passage itself. What if it were “cut out” of the larger text. Would it matter?

8. Materials Needed for the Job!
1. Highlighter (varied colours if possible
2. Pens (varied colours if possible)
3. Pencil
4. Coloured pencil – yes they really work!
5. Other??? Can you think of any that will not cover text in a negative way?? Bring them!!

9. So how do we do this?
Underline, star, highlight, box, circle whatever words, phrases, or sentences that catch your attention.
Write brief comments in the margins

10. What sorts of things do we look for again? (table style)
Alliteration
oxymoron
Allusion
paradox
Ambiguity
parallel construction
Archetypes
pattern
Assonance
personification
characterization
prose
denotation/connotation
rhetorical question
diction
rhyme
epic poetry
setting
Euphemism
simile
first person point of view
soliloquy

11. Are there more? Yes!! Foreshadowing stream of consciousness free verse
style-formal, informal
hyperbole
symbolism
Imagery
synesthesia
interior monologue
syntax
irony-dramatic, verbal, situational
third person limited
lyric poetry
third person omniscient
metaphor
time shifts
meter repetition
tone
narrative poetry
tragedy
naturalistic detail
understatement
onomatopoeia

12. Why oh Why?????
Annotating makes you think carefully about what you are reading. Reading is thinking!! You are “extending” this thinking by making notes
Annotating can help you make decisions about what is important
It is a great tool for writing about literature, for example, commentaries, essays, short answers, paragraph responses, etc.

13. What does it Look Like?

14. Any questions? This should be stressed all the way through high school
You should employ it at all times wherever possible.
You will not only look smarter but your mark should reflect this work you do.