1. Introduction to Annotating

2. What is Annotating?
Marking up a text as you read…it’s like writing down thoughts/questions/
comments you have as you read.

3. Why Annotate?
Annotations make it easy to find important information quickly when you look back and review a text.
They help you familiarize yourself with what you’re reading.
They help us interact with a text through comments, questions, associations, or other reactions that occur to you as you read.
They help you prepare to analyze and write about a piece of literature.

5. Earnest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway was having lunch with a number of writers and claimed that he could write a short story that was only six words long. Of course, the other writers didn’t believe him at first. Hemingway told each of them to put ten dollars in the middle of the table; if he was wrong, he said, he’d match it. If he was right, he would keep all the money. He quickly wrote six words down on a napkin and passed it around. The words were “FOR SALE; BABY SHOES, NEVER WORN.”

6. FOR SALE; BABY SHOES, NEVER WORN.
Practice Annotating
FOR SALE; BABY SHOES, NEVER WORN.

7. Annotating Steps 1. Number the Paragraphs
Number each paragraph so you can help us follow you when you read from the text during our discussions.
2. Circle
Circle confusing phrases or ideas. Don’t forget to write notes next to whatever your circle!
3. Think
What do you already know about this topic?
Why are you reading this article?
What are you being asked to do with this information? Include these thoughts in your notes as you annotate.
4. Box
Box significant details and words you find especially powerful.   

8. Annotating Steps 5. Highlight or Underline
Highlight or underline sections of the text that you may want to quote in your writing. Underline or highlight key words, phrases, or sentences. Write what you find significant about this part of the text in the margin.
Highlight the actions and reactions of characters that seem especially revealing. Write out to the side what character traits are being revealed.
Highlight any significant shifts in the plot of the piece of literature.
6. Work in the Margins
Ask a question that you have on the reading.
Title a paragraph in the margin with a phrase that summarizes its subject.
Draw charts, illustrations, or anything else that helps you understand the reading.
Make connections with other texts you’ve read.
Answer what you circled.
7. Summarize
At the end of each piece of literature, write a brief summary.

9. Independently: Annotate: My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke   
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.