Close Reading Strategies for Better Comprehension Text Annotation Close Reading Strategies for Better Comprehension

Text Annotation by Teachers These are editing symbols. In text annotation, students may elect to use symbols or tiny drawings, in addition to underlining, bracketing, circling, or writing comments or questions,

What is Text Annotation? While reading, students mark the pages for Important information Text meaning or key details Ideas and questions Some readers mark the text extensively; some readers only mark the parts they think are important or problematic. It’s not essential how MUCH students annotate, only that they DO annotate. The act of marking the page while reading makes it more likely that students will read closely and attentively.

What About Highlighters? Students often think text annotation simply involves highlighting almost every word in a text. It’s important to note that highlighting may be part of student’s system for annotation but it is NOT effective if it’s the only system.

What About Highlighting? Harvard University puts incoming students on notice about the effectiveness of highlighting… This comes from Harvard University Advice to Incoming Students.

Highlighting Dilutes Comprehension “First of all, throw away the highlighter in favor of a pen or pencil. Highlighting can actually distract you from the business of learning and dilute your comprehension”(2005). Please point out how distracting and complicated this seems. Also, if the reader doesn’t remember the color code, this could be meaningless later.

Note-Taking Improves Comprehension Note-taking activities have a positive impact on reading comprehension Twenty-one of twenty-three studies (91%) showed a positive outcome From Writing to Read—annotation is considered a note-taking strategy, something students must learn to do—and something that is taught infrequently in school.

Learning different annotation styles helps you discover what works for you. Teachers need to both teach annotation explicitly and teach multiple annotation styles. One reason students resort to only using highlighters is that they don’t know any other to note important information while they read. It’s important try out different ways to annotate texts while you read. Over time, you will gravitate to those that fit your individual needs best. However, you need to learn that there are MANY styles and strategies.

Annotation Styles and Strategies Bracket [important] passages The following seven slides illustrate multiple annotation styles. Move quickly through these as they are fairly self-explanatory. All of the annotation styles can be used at the same time by students while they read, depending on the purpose and comprehension level of the reader. Bracketing works for larger sections of text (like quotes, lines from other works, text within text). Labeling by the the brackets helps identify why the bracketed text is important.

Annotation Styles and Strategies Connect related ideas with lines Underline important ideas/details Underlining important and key ideas allows readers to find essential information without having to reread the entire text. When sections of text are connected, drawing lines or arrows between connecting ideas allows the reader to “see” those connections without having to reread the entire text. It also helps readers make critical text-to-text connections while they read.

Annotation Styles and Strategies Outline main ideas in margin and/or Write margin notes (comments and questions) Margin notes are essential and can include comments, questions, and symbols that the reader understands. By both reading AND writing while reading, comprehension is improved.

Annotation Styles and Strategies Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis Circle unfamiliar vocabulary This is a real word. It’s a disease of the lungs caused by inhaling small particles of dust from a volcanic eruption. Circling unfamiliar words (and sometimes looking them up in a dictionary or glossary) if there are no context clues within the reading, helps the reader know what questions to ask about the reading to improve his/her comprehension. It’s also a step frequently ignored by poor readers who skip over unfamiliar words and who never review them, even when reading in context doesn’t work.

Annotation Styles and Strategies Place asterisks or exclamation points next to unusual or surprising details **** Using asterisks or exclamation points next to unusual or surprising details allows readers to attend to the details and then move on to the more important or key details in the reading.

Annotation Styles and Strategies Use symbols, drawings, and small drawings(text coding) to highlight important details When using text coding, consistency is important. Students need to understand the key. If students are using text codes, emphasize that there needs to be some consistency in the coding so that students remember what the symbols mean.

Annotation Styles and Strategies Can’t write in books? Label with sticky notes— Students can use all the same strategies by placing their annotations on sticky notes on the pages of their books. Copy important sections from text (doesn’t break copyright if used for educational purposes) This strategy works best with limited amounts of text. It can also be cost prohibitive because someone has to buy the sticky notes.

Reading With Your Pen Palette The Reading With Your Pen Palette was developed by three teachers in Bronx, NY. There are 21 different annotation strategies students can use to annotate or code text while they read. Please refer teachers to the “Reading With Your Pen” Palette handout. They will use this to complete practice assignment.

What I Really Want Is Someone Rolling Around in the Text By SAM ANDERSON Published: March 4, 2011 (New York Times) As you read this article, ANNOTATE (highlight, underline, circle, symbolize, margin notes) parts you find interesting, have questions about, don’t understand, or would like to refer back to. When you are finished, answer the questions on the last page. 1.) What kinds of markings does Mr. Anderson put in his books? 2.) Why do e-books present a challenge to those who like to annotate their reading materials? 3.) What is the history of marginalia? 4.) What role does marginalia play in what Mr. Anderson calls “social reading”? 5.) According to Mr. Anderson, what is the relationship between marginalia and the experience of discovery while reading? Do you agree or disagree with him? These are editing symbols. In text annotation, students may elect to use symbols or tiny drawings, in addition to underlining, bracketing, circling, or writing comments or questions,

Annotation Styles and Strategies YOUR TURN: In your group, READ the annotation article given to you (aloud or independently). DISCUSS and agree on 3-5 main points in the article and give your overall rating (1-5) of how effective you think this form of annotation is. CREATE a colorful poster with the topic of your article, main points, and rating. SHARE your poster with the class. This strategy works best with limited amounts of text. It can also be cost prohibitive because someone has to buy the sticky notes.

Annotation Styles and Strategies GROUP #1: Highlighting and Annotating This strategy works best with limited amounts of text. It can also be cost prohibitive because someone has to buy the sticky notes.

Annotation Styles and Strategies GROUP #2: Writing Notes in the Margin: Marginalia This strategy works best with limited amounts of text. It can also be cost prohibitive because someone has to buy the sticky notes.

Annotation Styles and Strategies GROUP #3: Taking Reading Notes This strategy works best with limited amounts of text. It can also be cost prohibitive because someone has to buy the sticky notes.

Annotation Styles and Strategies GROUP #4: Keeping a Reading Journal This strategy works best with limited amounts of text. It can also be cost prohibitive because someone has to buy the sticky notes.

Annotation Styles and Strategies GROUP #5: Comparing Methods This strategy works best with limited amounts of text. It can also be cost prohibitive because someone has to buy the sticky notes.

Annotation Styles and Strategies GROUP #6: Using Digital Tools for Annotating This strategy works best with limited amounts of text. It can also be cost prohibitive because someone has to buy the sticky notes.

Marginalia by Billy Collins Sometimes the notes are ferocious, skirmishes against the author raging along the borders of every page in tiny black script. If I could just get my hands on you, Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien, they seem to say, I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head. Other comments are more offhand, dismissive 'Nonsense.' 'Please! ' 'HA! ! ' - that kind of thing. I remember once looking up from my reading, my thumb as a bookmark, trying to imagine what the person must look like why wrote 'Don't be a ninny' alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson. Students are more modest needing to leave only their splayed footprints along the shore of the page. One scrawls 'Metaphor' next to a stanza of Eliot's. Another notes the presence of 'Irony' fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal. Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers, Hands cupped around their mouths. 'Absolutely,' they shout to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin. 'Yes.' 'Bull's-eye.' 'My man! ' Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points rain down along the sidelines. And if you have managed to graduate from college without ever having written 'Man vs. Nature' in a margin, perhaps now is the time to take one step forward.' We have all seized the white perimeter as our own and reached for a pen if only to show we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages; we pressed a thought into the wayside, planted an impression along the verge. Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria jotted along the borders of the Gospels brief asides about the pains of copying, a bird signing near their window, or the sunlight that illuminated their page- anonymous men catching a ride into the future on a vessel more lasting than themselves. And you have not read Joshua Reynolds, they say, until you have read him enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling. Yet the one I think of most often, the one that dangles from me like a locket, was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye I borrowed from the local library one slow, hot summer. I was just beginning high school then, reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room, and I cannot tell you how vastly my loneliness was deepened, how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed, when I found on one page A few greasy looking smears and next to them, written in soft pencil- by a beautiful girl, I could tell, whom I would never meet- 'Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love.'

QUICKWRITE TICKET QUICKWRITE TICKET Name_____________Period___AP Literature Name_____________Period___AP Literature QUICKWRITE TICKET QUICKWRITE TICKET *Based on your own experience with annotation and what we’ve discussed today, describe your preferred method of text annotation and why it works for you. Looking towards college, what methods do you think will be most effective there and why?_______________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ ___ *Based on your own experience with annotation and what we’ve discussed today, describe your preferred method of text annotation and why it works for you. Looking towards college, what methods do you think will be most effective there and why?_______________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ ___