1. Annotation
Mrs. Pelletier

2. Purpose of Annotation
To understand WHAT the message and the purpose is
To understand HOW the author constructs the message
Understanding how the great writers convey their meaning, makes the readers better writers
To understand WHY the author conveys the message and WHY the author makes specific choices in the text
Helps understand people’s motives/how we are driven to action
Helps us think more deeply about the choice we make in our writing

3. SOAPSTone
Speaker: consider the persona the speaker creates through the language of the message
Note inconsistencies and/or contradictions to this persona
Occasion: the context; the situation when the speaker delivers the message
Note how the occasion influences the relationship between speaker and audience
Audience: characteristics; if unknown, characteristics should be revealed in the message
Note what the speaker’s language reveals about his/her view of the audience
Purpose: the goal of the speaker’s message (always starts with “to+verb”)
Subject: the topic of the message
Tone: the speaker’s attitude toward the subject as revealed through the message
Revealed most through diction (word choice)
Can look at shifts in subject as possible shifts in tone

4. How do you know what’s important
How do you know what’s important? Look for ANOMALIES and differences in the text.
Position: where you put something in the text
beginning and ending, order of ideas
Isolation: setting something off by itself
Ex.: a sentence in a paragraph by itself, dashes, parenthesis, etc.
Repetition: consider the number of times an idea is repeated
Proportion: how much of the piece an idea takes up
If there are multiple ideas, consider which the other spends the most time on