Prompt: 1. What has your experience with annotating readings been like? Do you hate annotating, love it, have a love/hate relationship with it? What do you like or dislike about it? What is your annotation practice like--do you use pens, pencils, sticky notes, highlighters? What do you usually mark up when you mark up your text?
I believe I was first told by a teacher that I had to annotate a novel in sixth grade. I clearly remember listening to Ms. Evans explain to the class why annotations were necessary and, therefore, why we would be graded on the quality of ours. Ever since, I haven't been the biggest fan of annotating. Teachers said annotations were for my benefit, yet I never found them helpful since, when annotating, I focused more on writing what my teachers wanted to see and less what I actually found interesting. However, after watching Michelle's micro lecture, I feel like my dislike for annotations may change this quarter. Something that stood out to me from her video was that there isn't anything specific that you're "supposed to find" while annotating. This is a different approach to annotating than I'm used to. In ninth grade, we were required to annotate chapters by noting 3 stylistic elements, 3 questions we had, and 3 "Aha!" moments we had during said chapter. Although this annotation style had some benefits, I found myself focusing on trying to find my sets of threes rather than writing down what seemed important to me. I am not only excited for the chance to find the annotation style that works for me, but to also observe how a more unstructured style of annotating allows me to better recall important parts of a text.
On another note, my annotation style has always been the same: pen or pencil directly on the page. I underline quotes I find interesting and draw stars next to sections that I think are important. Looking towards the future, I would like to get better at jotting down quick notes, regardless of if they are fully-fledged thoughts or not, in the margins to look back on when reviewing a book.
I agree in the individuality of annotations, I had a similar experience with rigid annotation rules in elementary and middle school, but no one would ever say that there is one interpretation, understanding, or meaning of a book, so why should there be annotations you are "supposed to find." The two just don't add up, meaningful annotation requires autonomous annotation.
ReplyDeleteThank you for pointing out the new style of annotating that Michelle proposed in the micro lecture. I also had a more structured introduction to annotating and found that they distracted me from the text. I have already enjoyed annotating more than in the past during my reading of Home Fire.
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