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Literacy 7-12

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Literacy 7-12 > Strategies > Annotating

Annotating

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Overview

When annotating, students engage deeply with a text and make their thinking visible while reading. By focusing their Attention on reading with a purpose, students identify and analyze the components of a text. Students can annotate to highlight the structure, arguments, or evidence; make connections and inferences; and question the text, which helps build their Critical Literacy.

Use It in the Classroom

Watch how this tenth grade teacher asks her students to annotate during a close reading. By connecting the reading with an essential question and giving annotation reminders, students can read with a specific purpose and tackle a complex text.

  • Teachers should model how to examine a text closely and make effective annotations. Analyzing models of annotated texts from other students or experts can also be helpful in showing how good readers make sense of their reading. Teachers can provide some suggestions for how to create annotations and symbols to use, such as connecting ideas with arrows, adding question marks when confused, or underlining important Vocabulary, but should also allow students to choose what works best for them. Annotations can be especially important for developing Disciplinary Literacy skills, as students learn to read with differing purposes in the content areas.

    • Design It into Your Product

    Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.

    Learn how Hypothes.is allows students to annotate any text on the web. With this browser extension, students can actively respond to online texts and their peers, increasing their digital citizenship and information literacy.

  • From encouraging students to react, question, argue, or evaluate a source, products can push the envelope for the kinds of annotations they offer and the purposes they serve. Developers can create digital annotation tools that allow students to collaboratively engage with texts. By leveraging affordances like multimedia and social reading online, students can respond to not only the text but also to their peers, creating a more meaningful discussion.
    • View References

    Resources

    Below are additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
    Examples

    Annolighting

    Teaching Tolerance strategy to improve reading comprehension

    Examples

    Annotating the Text

    Scholastic blog for annotating texts in middle school

    Examples

    Annotating to Engage, Analyze, Connect and Create

    New York Times blog on innovative ways to use annotation

    Examples

    Constructing Meaning with Annotation

    ReadWriteThink high school lesson for teaching student annotation

    Examples

    Digital Annotation Tools

    Common Sense Media list of digital annotation tools

    Examples

    Notice and Note

    Louisiana Believe's guide for analyzing and annotating patterns in fiction and non-fiction in order to help students make meaning

    Examples

    Sample Annotation Guide

    A teacher's guide for students of what annotating is and how to do it

    Examples

    Social Annotation

    Edutopia blog on digital annotation tools and how to use them

    Examples

    Stop and Jot

    Video and lesson templates for using this activity

    Research

    Metacognition & Self-Regulated Learning

    Subtopic that includes research on metacognitive processes that help learners plan what and how to learn on Digital Promise's Research Map

    Factors Supported by this Strategy

    Student Background
    Adverse Experiences
    Literacy Environment
    Physical Well-being
    Primary Language
    Safety
    Sleep
    Social Supports
    Socioeconomic Status
    Social and Emotional Learning
    Emotion
    Motivation
    Self-regulation
    Social Awareness & Relationship Skills
    Cognition
    Attention
    Cognitive Flexibility
    Inhibition
    Long-term Memory
    Metacognition
    Short-term Memory
    Speed of Processing
    Working Memory
    Literacy
    Argumentative Reasoning
    Background Knowledge
    Composition
    Disciplinary Literacy
    Inferencing
    Reading Fluency
    Vocabulary

    More Metacognitive Supports Strategies

    Journaling

    Journaling allows students to reflect on their thinking and feelings, process their learning, and connect new information to what they know, supporting their identity development and Sense of Belonging.

    Checklists & Rubrics

    Checklists and rubrics help students understand expectations as they navigate more complex tasks and assignments.

    Goal Setting & Monitoring

    Setting overall goals with actionable steps for achievement can help students feel more confident in their skills and abilities.

    Reflect on Learning

    Student reflection on learning, particularly when done collaboratively, is critical for moving knowledge of content and strategies into Long-term Memory.

    Self-monitoring

    When students monitor their comprehension, performance, and use of strategies when reading and writing, they build their Metacognition and actively participate in the reading process.

    Self-instructions

    When students engage in a dialogue with themselves, they are able to orient, organize, and focus their thinking.

    Positive Self-talk

    When students reframe negative thoughts and tell themselves kind self-statements, they practice positive self-talk.

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