How to Annotate

What is annotation?
• Meta-cognition = thinking about your thoughts
• Annotating is paying attention to your thoughts while reading:
• Questions we have
• Things we find strange or confusing
• Things we connect with
• Things we like or don’t like
• Writer’s craft we notice the author using
• Details we want to collect in order to get a complete picture of the writing

Why annotate?
• Read with purpose & focus (so you remember something after)
• Connect & engage with text (so it means something after)
• Help deepen meaning & understanding
• Prepare for discussion

Techniques
• Highlight
• Box or circle
• Draw arrows
• Underline
• Asterisk
• Attach post-its
• Write notes

Mark the Text

• Characters (who)
• Setting (where, when)
• Unfamiliar words
• Important quotations or passages
• Important information/arguments/points
Mark in the Margins
• Summarize
• Make predictions
• Formulate opinions (evaluate or judge the ideas or writing)
• Make connections
• Ask questions
• Analyze the way the author writes (i.e. look for author’s craft)
• Write reflections/reactions/comments
• Look for patterns or repetition

Tips
• Highlighting and underlining alone is not annotation! Knowing that a passage is
important is not the same as knowing WHY it is important.
• Identify literary elements (plot, theme, character and tone, conflict, setting) and literary
techniques (symbolism, metaphors, motifs, irony, foreshadowing, tone and mood,
descriptive or figurative language)
• Don’t over-annotate