Modeling the Annotation of Literature

Every year I tell my students that they can use their novels on tests and every year several students come with novels that are not annotated. Their reasons range from the fact that they didn't read much of the novel to they don't believe in taking notes to they don't know how to annotate.


I can't completely control the first two, but I can help with the last issue. Even though I know students have been taught how to annotate in prior classes, I review with them on the first day of the novel.

I posted part of the first chapter on the board and demonstrated how and what I would annotate. Then I asked them to do the same thing on their own with a paragraph. We put on the board what and how they annotated.

I hope that this modeling provided them with some guidance and explicit expectations. We will see how it goes.