Running Head: READ AND ANNOTATE IN SEARCH FOR MEANING

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Read and Annotate in Search for Meaning

Kaiyun Chen

Manhattan College EDUC 360: Language and Literacy

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Abstract

To enhance student learning, the literacy skills of reading and writing is necessary to be

examined in order to reveal its effectiveness inside the classroom. This paper is written to

explore an issue that a student seems to struggle with in a Social Studies classroom at Tech

International Charter School. While completing my field experience and observing this particular

student, Stephen, I noticed that he has trouble with reading texts at a more meaningful level.

This is a big issue for that when he is asked to construct responses to writing prompts, he is

unable to support his argument using the evidences from the readings. Hoping to guide him

toward obtaining better reading skills, I've devised a plan to help him discover a more effective

way of reading. With researches, I realized that the impact annotation can have on students

abilities to read. My plan was then devised with annotation techniques that aims to lead the

student to further success. Although the student eventually was able to use the annotating plan

to help him in his work, I hope that he will continue to use the tips from the plan and continue to

make progress toward better reading and writing.

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Read and Annotate in Search for Meaning

Introduction

Have you ever been asked to read something and then construct a meaningful response

to a writing task? Students are always expected to complete such tasks for tests, class works,

or homework. Being able to read and write meaningfully are very important techniques to learn

that will lead students to success. The problem is that students are often not taught how to

obtain these skills, at least not in an effective way. So let's explore together these crucial needs

for a meaningful reading experience!

As a student studies to be a teacher in the future, I understand that field experiences are

necessary, not only because they allow us to explore the different examples of teaching styles,

but they help us to begin analyzing, reflecting, and understanding specifics in the profession at a

deeper level. For my Language and Literacy course, we are instructed to explore a problem that

exists for a student in the class we've observed. The class where I completed my observation

hours is Mr. N's 8th grade social studies class at Tech International Charter School.

The class consists of 23 students and the majority of the students are Hispanic and

African American. Throughout my whole experience observing Mr. N, I was impressed with the

way he manages his classroom, approaches his students, and teaches his lessons. I believe

that he set up a really good example for his own students and future educators. While

observing, I was able to recognize many techniques and styles of teaching that we have

discussed or learned in class. However, although Mr. N is a great teacher for his students, there

are still issues that students encounter while being in his class.

The Issue

Students in this class tend to struggle with using support materials in their works. One

student in particular, Stephen, struggles to expand his own work. Mr. N would often ask students

to view and review given information, such as primary sources, then construct a respond to a
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prompt on the sources. Mr. N aims to help his students construct essays that are strong in

arguments, as well as in evidences. Although Stephen is able to make an argument or a claim

for the material and his answer is concisely written, he is often unable to support his answer.

Stephen has difficulty finding details in the given materials as supporting evidences or

examples.

For instance, Mr. N one day gave an assignment to have students write a short response

to the question: What is one affect that the Great Depression had on people during the 1900's?

Stephen answered, "The Great Depression affected many people in the 1900's in many bad

ways like making people poor," then Stephen stopped writing.

I walked around the class and I saw his response; I asked him how he is doing with his

answer and he told me that he was finished. He covered up his paper, aware that I've noticed

how little he wrote for his response. I asked him to read the sources that Mr. N had placed on

the table for students reference. He then told me with confidence that he read them already. So

I asked him if he could support his answer with evidence from what he read. I asked him, "How

did the Great Depression made people poor?" I hoped that he would use the source on the

stock market crash, but he did not. He struggled to understand what I meant to support his

answer. That is when I realized that Stephen needed extra assistance. I can see that not being

able to support your own argument or claim in the paper will make your response weak.

Analysis on the Problem

I begin to analyze the problem, and then I realized, although Mr. N is an excellent

teacher, there is one mistake that he has made. When Mr. N provided students with documents

and sources of information, he provided them with a copy that they must share and not write on.

I understood that he might be doing this to limit the amount of papers that he would need to print

out for the whole class. This is also beneficial to him as a teacher for all the materials are
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always well organized and filed in his lesson cabinet. However, the problem is that this prevents

the students from taking notes and noticing the details in the given materials.

I believe that the reason why Stephen is unable to identify needed supporting details for

the task is because he is unable to organize the information given. When given the source, he

read it as if it is just a combination of words, without any real meaning behind these words.

However, if he is able to annotate the source, he might be able to understand that one idea is

different from another. Then, he might be able to distinguish the materials that would be helpful

for him to construct his argument.

I begin to research the importance of annotation for students in their ability to find

evidential support. In the article "How to Read: Using Annotation in the Composition Classroom"

by Emily January Petersen, the writer and educator recognize the importance of annotation for

better student learning. With evidences from other researchers and writers such as Freire,

Slover, Zywica, and Gomez, Petersen develops techniques to strengthen the student ability in

reading with better support, for better support. She was then able to collect reactions and

responses from students that points out the importance of reading and annotating.

Research on Possible Solution

In order to understand the importance of annotation, one must understand the

importance of reading. Reading and writing goes hand-in-hand, especially in English and Social

Studies classrooms, where the literacy skills in the classes focus on the ability to read and write.

When students learn how to read, they will be able to write at a more in-depth level. As

supported by the article "The importance of the Act of Reading" written by Paulo Freire and

Loretta Slover, reading promotes growth. The authors explain, "Reading is not exhausted

merely by decoding the written word or written language, but rather anticipated by and

extending into knowledge of the world" (Pg. 5). Teaching students how to read is important, but

reading is not just understanding the words one-by-one, it is not just reading for the sake of
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knowing. Reading is for understanding, and understanding the information can expand students'

knowledge at a deeper level. For students to actually be able to use the information that they've

read and understood, that is the goal. Meaningful reading help students to "learn its underlying

significance" (Pg. 8), the article continues to emphasize the way in which reading can help

students develop impactful skills of digging up information from texts.

The technique of annotation is a topic discussed among many researchers and writers.

Not only is it examined for its different methods, but it is discussed for its effectiveness on the

students. In the article "Annotating to Support Learning in the Content Areas: Teaching and

Learning Science," the authors Jolene Zywica and Kimberley Gomez suggest the importance of

meaningful reading. Annotation, the strategic literacy approach, is described to have major

effects on student's ability to "pay attention to how and what information is presented" (Pg.155).

While Stephen struggles with making sense of the reading materials that are presented to him

by his teacher, he struggles with reading the materials.

Annotation is explained in Zywica and Gomez's article to be "a structured way to mark

up text so it is more manageable" (Pg. 156). In other words, this is a technique that will help

students organize the information within the reading materials. However, annotation is not only

argued to be effective, current educators have put the strategy in practice to assist students in

using the different techniques. They then use students responses and reactions in recognizing

the actual impact annotation can have on them.

For example, in the article "How to Read: Using Annotation in the Composition

Classroom" by Emily Petersen, the writer explained annotation on actual student impact. She

stated, "student reported that annotating has helped him with remembering the major themes of

each essay so he can write about it without forgetting " (Pg. 3). As this teacher uses the strategy

with her students, they are able to use the information that they've read and remembered to get

support in their writing. Students explain that "annotation marks help them to summarize
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because they have already located the important points and made notes to themselves about

those ideas" (Pg. 6). The strategy helps students to pull out needed information, even enough

information to help students construct a well developed understanding of the text as a whole.

Furthermore, it is actually really interesting to find Petersen referencing the previous

discussed article. Jolene Zywica and Kimberley Gomez suggest that annotation will help

students become better readers . . ., increase their reading scores . . ., and improve their

content understanding (155-56)," Petersen here recognizes the importance of annotation the

same way other writers and researchers has.

Constructing a Plan with Possible Solution

With all the researches done on the importance of reading and annotating, I constructed

a plan and a method of activation. The Monday I went into observation, I asked Mr. N if I could

have the reading materials prepared for the students on Thursday. Mr. N, being as supportive

and helpful as he has been, gave me a copy of the source. The source consists of information

on the Great Depression. The task that the students are asked to complete that Thursday is to

read the source and construct a well supported paragraph to answer a question that can

possibly come up as a short response question on the State exam, a test that they will have to

take soon in June. With the source, I made a personal copy for Stephen. Then I asked him to

follow the reading and annotation instructions that I wrote down:

Before you read the source:

Read the question that is presented to you on the writing task.
Look at information on the reading source that are physically apparent to you. Ex:
title, headings, or bolded words.
While you read:
Keep the writing task question in your mind
Circle powerful words
Underline phrases that are important
Draw an arrow to point out something that you can make a connection to with
another text or own experience
On the margin, write down any important thoughts that you have:
To clarify
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To question
To respond
To visualize
To summarize
Answer the question: what are some quotes from the reading that you can use in your
response? Hint: look at your annotations!
Action

Stephen will benefit from this in that he will be able to gather the information he needs

and make sense of what he is reading. With the reading and annotation tips, I gave him a

question that follows the task that was given by the teacher. At first, Stephen was resistant,

believing that I am adding extra work for him. He said, "Why'd I have to do this? It's so much

work!" I sat down with him and explained that this is something that I had to do for my class and

I needed his help to try it out. After the short discussion, Stephen agreed to help me. I realize

now that I should have not only explain how this is helpful for me, but also explain how it is

helpful to him as a student preparing for the exam coming up. I hope he realize after doing the

work that this is something that he can use and continue to use in order to help him be a more

thoughtful reader and a more critical student and thinker.

That Thursday, Mr. N gave the class student- directed instructions for the lesson. I took

out the extra copy of the reading source that I had with me and handed to Stephen. Stephen

looked at me and asked what I wanted him to do. I told him thank you for helping then I took out

the reading and annotation tips sheet with the questions. With the tips and question, Stephen

begin to annotate the source. It was hard for him to follow through at first because there seems

to be so much extra work that he would have to do compare to his other classmates. However,

step by step, I guided him along the way and pointed out some of the things that he could have

underlined, circled, or clarified. For example, I told him that he can circle "President Hoover"

because this is an important figure during the Great Depression and the name is a term that he

can possibly use later on in his writing.

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When Stephen finished reading and annotating, I gave him the task from Mr. N and

asked him to construct his paragraph using the information that he pulled out from the reading.

Stephen wrote the short response and when I read his work, I was in joy. Stephen wrote his

answer with great support from the text. He was able to use the information given and provide

explanations with the evidences. He even used one of the quotes from the reading in his work.

Mr. N read his response and said that it is well supported. With this plan, I am hoping that Mr. N

will consider using to help expand better learning for other students in the classroom.

Reflection

After putting this plan to work, I realized that there are many factors, both negative and

positive, that comes into this plan. Although the plan seems successful because Stephen was

finally able to construct a well-developed and well supported writing response for Mr. N's task.

However, this process took a longer time, when most of Stephen's classmates finished with their

work and begin to use the laptops in the classroom to do literacy practices, Stephen was still

sitting with me, working on this task. I saw that he was frustrated at one point. Nonetheless, he

continued the work and got to the end with success. Effective annotation skills are so important

to obtain, I really hope that Stephen will continue to use these tips in the future for his other

reading and writing tasks. However, I believe that this was a good experience for both him as a

student and me as a future educator. For him, he is now more aware the different ways in which

he can read, not just words, but meanings behind the words. He will now at least have some

understanding of how to annotate, such as circling important phrases. For me, I am given the

opportunity to explore through research how annotation can help my students achieve higher

understanding of texts. When I become an English teacher in the future, I will sure teach my

students how to read and annotate in a meaningful way. It will be the bridge between my

students and the meaningful English literature world.

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References

Freire, P., & Slover, L. (1983). THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ACT OF READING. The Journal of

Education, 165(1), 5-11. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42772842

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Petersen, E. J. (2012). How to Read: Using Annotation in the Composition

Classroom. Compendium2: Writing Teaching and Learning in the University, 5, 1.

Zywica, J., & Gomez, K. (2008). Annotating to Support Learning in the Content Areas: Teaching

and Learning Science. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(2), 155-165. Retrieved

from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20111752