Annotations - The Key to Close Reading

Students will learn how to perform a close reading of difficult texts through annotating an age-appropriate, but difficult text with the teacher. Students will be taught different tips and tricks to annotating to help them understand the text better through close reading with the teacher. Students will be shown how to annotate in a step by step walk-through with the teacher. However, each student will come up with their own annotations. This means the teacher will show how it is done, but the thoughts and product that the students will have at the end of the class will all be in their own words. This helps students learn how to do this more effectively.

The teacher will be annotating their own version of the assignment as the students are so that they can be compared and discussed as part of the class.

Below is a list of materials that students will need to complete the course. They are not something that will all be used. Students will determine which materials they want to use because annotations, while specific in their purpose, can be done in many different ways. We will discuss the different techniques that can be used but the students will choose the ones that work best for them!