1. KEEP ACTIVE
Annotating A Text

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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.

5. 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?