1. Annotated Reading in Content Areas

2. Have you ever read a paragraph and not had a clue what you read?
Active Responding
Have you ever read a paragraph and not had a clue what you read?
Middle School and High School students can fake us out with their fluency. We need to help them with their metacognition, to help them understand and interact with what they read.

3. Our Students
Must compete in an environment in which they are able to read expertly, think critically, and communicate effectively.
Must have literacy skills or will have a tremendous difference in a their ability to understand political, social, and scientific issues.
Are expected to “Read to Learn” in secondary settings
Often lack strategies to tackle their subject area reading materials
Strategies may be taught in English or Reading, but less attention is often given to the demands of reading nonnarrative or nonliterabure based text. Content area teachers assume good reading skills and focus more on content.

4. Annotation
A structured way to mark up text so that it is more manageable
Annotation is used to highlight important information:
Main idea
Supporting Ideas
Key content vocabulary
Definitions
Transitions
Confusing Information

5. Why Annotate? Helps Students:
Become better readers of content materials,
Increase their reading scores,
Improve content understandings
Become more active and engaged readers
Analyze texts by looking for structures and patterns that are used to convey information.
Helps students visualize as they read and makes it easier to understand the content.
Avoid skimming
Develop study guides

6. The Problem With Many Texts
Difficult for readers to navigate
Lack useful headings and definitions
Unclear headings or definitions

7. Caveats
Repeatedly emphasize the benefits of annotation and remind students why they are doing it.
Consider giving students vocabulary words ahead of time when they are annotating.
Decide how you want students to find main idea (one per paragraph or two for each section).
Start with a few steps – too many will overwhelm the students in the beginning. Gradually introduce more steps.
Have an annotation poster in the classroom
Collaborate with your colleagues in other departments for consistency.
Whenever annotation is used always discuss answers in class.

8. Resources
Annotation requires students to have materials they can mark up!
If copies aren’t feasible for every student, have them work in groups.
Annotate using Smart Board or Overhead Projector
Assign annotation as homework and then discuss the next day

9. Small Group Discussion
Socrative: Are you currently using annotation in your class?
What ideas do you have about how annotation can be used in your classes?
How could annotation be modified for use with technology (I pads, Kindles, etc.)?

10. English Language Arts Common Core Standards 2010
Include Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies
Must be embedded in grades 6-8 and grades 9-12
10 standards each for reading and writing related to social studies
Broken down by grades 6-8, 9-10, 11-12

11. Reading MCA Items Types of questions by grade level
Grades
Literature
Informational
3-5
50%
6-8
45%
55% 10
35%
65%

12. Examples of Reading MCA test specs related to social studies:
Literature and items may include/address topics representing the cultural experience of Minnesota American Indians; however, items are not limited to the cultural experience of Minnesota American Indians.
Items may address ideas that focus on the experience of diverse groups, communities, or cultures.
Items may include analysis of the motivation of individuals—real people—and/or interpretation of their actions based on events.

13. Items may assess adequacy, accuracy and appropriateness of author’s evidence and credibility of sources.
Items may address the author’s method of organization for nonfiction text or an individual’s method of evaluating a problem or concept (e.g., problem/solution; cause/effect; compare/contrast; chronological order; description).