Annotation Fatigue? Try this!

Skilled readers actually engage with a text.  What

does an engaged reader look like as an adult?  This question led me to notice that it does not look like it did in my classroom for the most part.

As an English teacher, I personally purchase EVERY text I teach (even if I only teach it once).  Why?  It's simplistic, but it's because I write in my margins. I underline quotes, I trace character development, I annotate for symbols and archetypes. I do all of these things, and some of you might think that I do those things because I am an English teacher, but that's not true. Junior and senior year in high school me did the same thing.  College me certainly did the same

thing. In truth, if I am going to use a text for a writing task or if I just totally love a book, I write all over it.

Taught a book ten times?  It doesn't matter, I still write all over it. It keeps me honest in my insights, but it also gives me access to the author's layers of genius that I may have missed the other nine times.

This is what English teachers want for their students.  This is what I want for my students. But my students can't write in their books unless they buy new copies, which is

not reasonable for public school students.  So, as educators, we try to replicate that spontaneous and irreplaceable moment of "I love this line so much that I need to underline it with an exclamation point in the margin."

We do that through quote analysis, we do that through sticky notes, we do that through think-pair-shares, and turn-and-talks. But it is never really the same moment of "YES! I love this!" because it requires stepping outside of the text to document it.  At NCTE19 in Baltimore, I attended multiple

sessions addressing student engagement in literacy.  Having trailed Penny Kittle via Twitter and through her work 180 Days co-written with Kelly Gallagher, I was familiar with the concept of one-pagers. I'd even tried it a bit last year.  Still, after NCTE19, my colleague and friend, who co-plans American Literature with me and I decided: we're doing this.

In an attempt to alleviate annotation fatigue, we required three illustrated double-pagers in their composition notebooks.  Students were required to select a theme or focus like character growth or symbolism and develop a focus point. They

also needed to include a minimum number of quotes (usually landing in the 3-5 range).

We questioned how our students would respond to this new approach.  To us, it seemed like more work than annotating with sticky notes and would undoubtedly be more time-consuming.  I confessed to my students that their first two-page spread focusing on either Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises or A Farewell to Arms was a risk. It was a calculated risk, but it could fail.  I promised that if it failed that I would somehow fix it.  How?  I had no idea, and if it worked for Penny, I figured it must be a genius alternative

expression for literary engagement and annotation.  (I confess that I fangirl Penny's work.)

What I (and my co-planning colleague) discovered was that students preferred the illustrated two-page spreads over the alternatives that we had used previously.  As you can see by their examples, some are artistically brilliant, while others who claimed to lack artistic skill managed to convey an insight that they attributed to the required connection between words and imagery.

I asked the following questions, and here are my students' responses:

1) Was this a lot of work? How long did it take? Answers from an hour to three were common.

2) Given this took longer, is it "too much" for an assignment that is not a final?  "No, I'd rather do this any day." "It was a lot, but I  got more out of the reading this way." "I actually preferred this, which is weird because it's more time-consuming."

3) How did you keep track of the quotes you wanted to use for that chunk of reading when you didn't know what you wanted you illustrated two-pager to be about? "I wrote quotes I liked on a page in my notebook." "I stuck a sticky near the quotes I liked, but I didn't write on it. I just did it so I could find it."

4) Do you want to do this again with another book club option?  YES!!!!

This was convincing though not wholly enough for me to know this was the best option to alleviate annotation fatigue.  What did I need to know that it was the best option?

I needed to witness their discussion in book clubs to confirm that the merging of the creative side with the analytical side was effective and reflected a higher level of engagement than alternative annotation methods provided.

Having reviewed the illustrated two-page spreads individually, I sat in on book club discussions.  Students proudly shared their insights into character and theme seemingly without realizing they were doing so.  Colors were no longer used to make the pieces look better. Instead, colors connected to character growth, theme, or symbolism individual students decided to trace throughout their chosen text.

Their depth of insights and level of engagement during book clubs was significantly higher than I anticipated when I took this "risk."  In fact, it was no risk at all.  It turns out that by being intimidated by the illustrated two-page spreads last year and sticking with what I knew, I was unintentionally holding my students' analysis back and limiting their level of engagement while intending to do the exact opposite!

Does this mean my students will never sticky note again?  No.


Does this mean my students find every significant detail, symbol, or quote as they read?  No.


But it does mean that my students felt a sense of ownership and pride in their insights that increased their levels of engagement during their reading, and that is the point!

Below are a few more student exemplars from my students.