KEEP ACTIVE Annotating A Text

WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHILE ANNOTATING New vocabulary Repeated words or images (motifs – repeated images that have symbolic significance) Revelations (meaningful quotes) Characters (motivations, objectives, and obstacles) Setting Conflicts and complications Themes Predictions Impressions Questions

HAVE A SYSTEM Before you begin, set up a key or system for annotation. Example: Underline new vocabulary Circle character information Brackets around [revelations] Parenthesis around (setting) information Star by *complications and *conflict with notes above Square around motifs and symbols with notes above Questions at the bottom of the page Predictions at the top of the page Insights in margins to left and right

HAVE A DIALOGUE WITH THE TEXT Annotation is not busy work! Goals of annotation: Get to the heart of the theme. Form a relationship with the characters; try to understand: Their motivations – Why they do and say what they do? Their objectives – What do they want in the short term and long term? Their obstacles – What is in the way of the characters getting what they want? Remember the experiences of the novel in a personal way like it happened to you. Have a dialogue or conversation with the text. Appreciate the structure, complexity, and beauty of the text. Be able to return to the text later.

AN EXAMPLE FROM “GIFT OF THE MAGI” BY O. HENRY Della will find a way to get more money. *ONE DOLLAR AND eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. *And (the next day would be Christmas.) There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the (shabby little couch) and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that [life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.] Della is poor Why is Della crying? What does she need money for?