1. Clear everything off your desk except for a PENCIL.
11/4/16
Clear everything off your desk except for a PENCIL.

2. Annotation is a note of any form made while reading text.
“Reading with a pencil.”

3. Annotation is not highlighting.

4. Foundational Annotation Skills
Underline the major points.
Circle keywords or phrases that are confusing or unknown to you.
Write margin notes restating the author’s ideas.

5. 9th Grade English

7. Annotate “Letting Go” Underline the major points.
Circle keywords or phrases that are confusing or unknown to you.
Write margin notes restating the author’s ideas.

8. Who is the narrator of the story?
What does the text say? Key Details
Who is the narrator of the story?
Facilitator: this question doesn’t require a table discussion, as adults quickly arrive at this answer. You can use this as an example of a literal level question.

9. What does the text say? Key Details
Facilitator: this question doesn’t require a table discussion, as adults quickly arrive at this answer. You can use this as an example of a literal level question.
What is happening with the family at the beginning? What words and phrases help you to determine this?

10. What is happening in paragraph 7 when the narrator is “shedding?”
What does the text say? Key Details
Facilitator: this question doesn’t require a table discussion, as adults quickly arrive at this answer. You can use this as an example of a literal level question.
What is happening in paragraph 7 when the narrator is “shedding?”

11. How does the text work?
How much time passes during the story? What words and phrases help you to determine this?
Facilitator: Water is used to symbolize life. Fresh water symbolizes good health, while muddy water symbolizes death or bad times. Rivers are often used to symbolize change and the passage of time.

12. How does the text work?
What is the significance of the author repeating the phrase, “And I watched him grow?”
Facilitator: The use of the word “THE” speaks of the whole of the people, not just an individual. Hughes is reminding us that African-Americans draw strength from their history and the span of their influence and presence across the world.

13. What does the tree symbolize?
How does the text work?
Facilitator: deep, continuous, mysterious.
What does the tree symbolize?

14. What words does the author use to convey a sense of longing?
How does the text work?
Facilitator: Both rivers and veins have many branches that form a web or network, especially as they connect to other rivers or veins. Symbolically, both symbolize movement, and are necessary for life. If either a vein or a river stopped, death would soon occur. [PHOTO]: The Mississippi River delta, as imaged by Japan’s Advanced Land Observing Satellite.
What words does the author use to convey a sense of longing?

15. How does the text work?
Facilitator: the time period extends from approximately 3000 BC to the late 19th century.
What is the tone of the beginning of the story? How does it change in paragraph 5? How does it change again in paragraph 7?

16. Why does the author tell the story from the tree’s perspective?
How does the text work?
Why does the author tell the story from the tree’s perspective?
Facilitator: The places Hughes mentions go from Mesopotamia, to the Congo, to Egypt, to New Orleans. He follows a pattern of natural migration (Mesopotamia and the Congo), to forced migration through enslavement (Egypt and New Orleans.)

17. What is the theme of the story?
What does the text mean? Inferences
What is the theme of the story?
Facilitator: Hughes is contemplating the African-American’s experiences from enslavement (muddy) to hard-fought freedoms (golden). While he realizes there is still much to be done (this was written in 1921, decades before civil rights legislation), he is hopeful that there are some signs of improvement. However, the river remains muddy below its golden surface, suggesting there is still much to be done.

18. What does this line reveal about the narrator’s hopes for the future?
What does the text mean? Inferences
The Author realizes that “someday these people who live here will walk out of the gate for the last time, as did all those who lived here before.”
What does this line reveal about the narrator’s hopes for the future?
Facilitator: Hughes is tracing an arc of history to demonstrate their resilience, strength, and tenacity throughout the millennia. He is also tracing the rise and fall of other civilizations (the Egyptian empire, the Roman empire) to show that his people endure.

19. Who is the boy in this story? Who is the author?
What does the text say? Key Details
Who is the boy in this story?
Who is the author?