Annotating is an essential reading and studying skill. While some college freshmen will have been exposed to the concept of annotating their readings, many students have not been explicitly taught how or what to annotate, while still others have never been introduced to the practice. Professors, while skilled annotators themselves, may stumble over how to teach the basics to their inexperienced students. The key, I believe, is to start small and build up to a comprehensive annotation practice. Below, I’ve listed two broad categories of annotations and some elements for each.
Structural/Mechanical Annotations
- Main points/key terms
- Key evidence
- The text’s structure (or what the author is doing)
- Thread of academic conversation through the piece
- Key themes/images (for literature/poetry)
Conceptual/Reactionary Annotations
- Questions (in or inspired by the text)
- Connections to other texts/contexts
- Emotional response
- Level of persuasion (do you agree or disagree?)
- Paraphrases and summary
A practiced annotator will incorporate as many of these (or other) elements as is appropriate for the text at hand, but a novice might be intimidated by the thought of keeping track of this many things at once. So start simple. Ask your student to begin annotating with one or two of these ideas. I would recommend using main points/key terms and questions. These are the annotation strategies most likely to help a student comprehend the text and be able to contribute to discussions in class. Perhaps more importantly, it should help the student to feel like he or she has permission to have questions about a text while simultaneously giving him or her the tool to find helpful answers.
Once the student has a basic grasp of annotating with those two ideas, you can ask them to begin to annotate with an eye for other things. A good next step might be adding annotations for the text’s structure, connections to other texts, and the level of persuasion they feel as they read. Each successive layer to their annotating practice will help the student further develop his or her critical reading skills. By the time they’ve mastered annotating, students should be able to cultivate a deep understanding of academic texts and be prepared to discuss them in depth.
Shannon Naylor is the CTL post-graduate teaching intern. Shannon is looking forward to appearing in a selection from the play Doubt at the end of term.