Annotating Your Thoughts To Understand Text

For Friday, read through this blog post on Active Reading and Annotating. You will be required do annotations of readings going forward, so these notes give you some guidance as to what is expected.

Active Reading and Annotating | First Experience Analysis

Who doesn’t want to be as smart as Sherlock Holmes? How can we grow our own observation and thinking skills? 

How can you being to understand the rhetorical techniques that a writer uses in a piece? 

How can you find reasons that this piece of writing is published, anthologized, and deemed "important" or "good" for readers?


The Basic Steps To Becoming a More Critical Thinker and Writer of Academic Essays Through Active Reading and Annotation

• Highlight and/or underline words and whole lines that imply/infer more meaning to you as the reader.

• Read and re-read a passage (especially in poetry) to find key elements

• Imagery, 
• Figures of speech
• Sound patterns, 
• Thematic words/phrases
•  character description, etc.

• Define key words and phrases (both denotations and connotations) – especially references to words/things you don’t know!

• With poetry, many words and phrases have double or triple meaning. Plus, the extra connections should help you understand the poem's richness/why it is an example to learn from.

• Pose questions and comments in the margins. 

• Be curious! What ideas and emotions does the reading inspire…on what subject…?

• Pause and record. What does text inspire at the point of inspiration? Pause and record. Pause and record. Pause and record.

• Mark structural elements (spacing, headers, transitional phrases, etc.) 

• How does the writer shift?
• What is the purpose of their shifts?

• Summarize the piece in your writing journal when you have finished reading. (Reflecting on reading=very smart.)

• Ask/write down questions about both the ideas brought up, and to the support provided for the writer’s argument/view on their subject. Here are some key starting spots:

• Comparison. Where does this piece relate to other works of art, literature, life? How does this piece inform or instruct?

• What is unique about the writer's style? 

• What is unique about the writer's perspective on its subject matter?