Close Reading and Annotating English B1B Close Reading and Annotating

Active Reading When you are assigned reading for school, how do you approach it? What strategies do you use? Take a minute to jot down your active reading process.

Annotating Annotating, or taking notes while you read, is an excellent way to stay focused on what you read and thus get more out of it. There are lots of ways to take notes. You might Summarize small passages in your own words Define unfamiliar terms in the margins Identify main ideas of paragraphs Make personal connections or connections to other classes/pieces of information Ask questions of the text or mark areas of confusion

Highlighting Highlighting can be an effective means of annotating a text. However, it’s best to have a plan, because

Persistence There will be times that you will struggle to find meaning in the reading. The vocabulary will challenge you, the connections will elude you—do not give up. Learn to embrace confusion and see it as an opportunity for growth. Remember that learning is a process that takes time. Don’t succumb to learned helplessness and say that you tried to do the assigned reading but couldn’t because “it was hard”.

But it’s “boring”… You’ve got to find meaning and relevance in the material you’re reading. I’ll do my best to help you with this with our pre-reading activities, but engagement is a two-way street. “[Treat]… the printed word as a window through which…[you] can see anything” (Bain 233).

Guided Reading If all else fails, remember that the reading you do for our class will almost always translate to a writing assignment of some sort—your annotations are like instant pre-writing. Your diligence will pay off!

Interpretation You’ll be asked to provide interpretations for the readings assigned. What do you think we mean by “interpretation”?

Interpretation Just as stories vary depending on who is telling them, so their meaning varies depending on who is responding to them. When you interpret a work of literature, you closely read the text and then explain the conclusions you reached from looking at the big picture and all its separate parts.

Interpretation To grapple with any text, look at one part at a time and gradually try to make sense of how these parts work together to form a whole. As you make sense of each new piece of the picture, adjust your expectations about what is to come. Finally, express your reflective understanding in writing—tell your story about the work.

Interpretation Not all interpretations are created equal. The best interpretations are those that are supported by the text itself. Thus, we will be using textual evidence to support our interpretations, both in class discussion and in writing. This ensures that we are truly basing our interpretations on close reading of the text.

Practice We’ll read the first two stanzas of “Eating Poetry” together. On your own, actively read the rest of the poem. Work to move beyond the literal words on the page and form an interpretation of the poem. What do you think it means, based on close reading?

Discuss Now, get together in groups of 4. Take turns sharing your interpretations. How are they similar? What new perspectives did you notice? Be prepared to share your responses with the rest of the class.