1. Annotating Text

2. What is annotating?
It is the process of recording your thoughts as you read.
Think of it as “talking to the text.”

3. Benefits of Annotating
It keeps your brain engaged with the text while you read.
It gives you the ability to review the text by rereading your notes.
It allows you to better understand, remember, and think more deeply about the text.

4. What should I annotate? Connections Questions Understandings
Vocabulary
Important quotes or passages
Parts of text relating to themes, characters, or events

5. What else should I annotate?
Literary techniques: figurative language, symbols, foreshadowing
Character descriptions
Shocking moments
Important setting descriptions
Conflicts

6. Useful or Useless?
Annotating text can be a powerful tool for understanding, BUT it can also be a complete waste of time if it is not done well.

7. Types of Annotating: Labeling
Labeling identifies an important part of the text you may want to return to later.
It works best with common elements, such as figurative language, character description, setting, plot development, and possible foreshadowing.
These are elements you may use later to make deeper meaning.

8. For example: description- had been gone. Her big brother. He’d
Character “Ten months from now, Derek
description had been gone. Her big brother. He’d
Derek been the same age as she was now when, on a day like any other, he’d gone off to school and just never came back.”
-from Missing by Catherine Macphail

9. Types of Annotating: Responding
Record your thoughts, questions, connections about a specific part of the text.
This helps you interact with the text, so you can understand and remember what you read.

10. For example:
“When the Tailban first came and ordered all men to grow beards, Parvana had a hard time getting used to her father’s face. He had never worn a beard before.”
-from The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis
Why were all men ordered to grow beards?

11. Create a code that works for you.