Annotation Handout--

Dr. Gingrich

Annotating is a way of marking up or highlighting a text (if it is a school book or library book using sticking notes) so that you have identified important information or ideas for a particular task (writing an essay, completing a research paper, studying for a test, preparing for a class discussion).  What goes into an annotation depends on the purpose of your task.  The way that you annotate then depends on your purpose and what will help you to reach that purpose most successfully.

 

Questions: 

What questions do you have about the text?  What do you find interesting or confusing?  What would you ask a character or an author?  Why do you think the writer used a particular device (metaphor, image, sentence structure, diction) in their work?  How does that device connect to the author’s purpose?

Focus – particular lit term for that passage (characterization, allusion, symbolism, etc.)

Stylistic patterns: the choices that the author makes in writing in a particular way. 

Unknown vocabulary – circle words/define words in margin

A-ha moments! – what stands out to you in the text.

You may use a pen, a highlighter (I suggest doing this as you read and then go back and write comments afterwards), sticky notes, or colored pencils. 

The  first assignment for tonight is to finish annotating the story you have read.  I want you to annotate for the following three things:

Images

Character portrayals

Themes

A theme is a statement which reveals what the story suggests about the human condition, what essential it teaches us about life.

It always has a subject and a verb.