Notes on Annotation

What processes or strategies did you use when annotating your chosen article? What kinds of things did you underline or highlight? Why? What kinds of notes did you write in the margins?  Why?  Imagine that you have a class of inexperienced writer.  How would you explain annotation to them? How would you get them to actually do it?  How would get them to actually bring the hard copy of their annotated article to class?

I read "Schema Theory Revisited" in PDF rather than printing it out. When I read on the computer, I usually annotate using the “annotate” function on the PDF, which allows me to underline or highlight sentences that I think are important – topic sentences, summary sentences or definitions. I also write short comments every page or so summarizing main ideas.

For some reason the PDF wouldn’t let me “write” to the document this time around and I got a bit stuck about how to annotate. I was able to draw boxes around a few big points, but it was frustrating not being able to mark on the text like I’m used to. Since I didn’t have a printer at my disposal, I opened a word document and began summarizing as I read. I would skim through a section of the article, slowing down as I necessary to unpack a more difficult idea, then write a quick 2-sentence summary of that section on the word document. This way, I got my “summary blog” written simultaneous with my “annotating.” Or maybe it just means I wasn’t annotating.

I should have just printed out the hard copy, but again I didn’t have a printer with me as I was first reading. This is my excuse, and students are always going to have some excuse or special circumstance, right? How to get students to bring a hard copy of an article to class? Make it mandatory for participation maybe, or provide the hard copy for them (my college offers free reproduction services to faculty, so that’s doable). I find the problem isn’t always having a copy on hand so much as getting them to ANNOTATE. Sometimes I’ll discuss what annotation is and model how to do it to students, and then week after week they show up in class without a single mark on their papers! I’ve heard it can help to walk around the room and give points to students for having completed the annotations. A few times I’ve called on students to ask them what they marked and why, which led to more students having marked papers for the next class. However, as soon as I stop asking this question, students stop marking, so….?

To explain annotation, I give students a list of different types of annotation markings (star, underlining, “def.” 1, 2, 3, etc.) and why one might use them. Then I pass out a short article to the class. They preview the text. Then everyone reads and annotates the first page. When they’re done, I go around the room and ask everyone for ONE word, idea or sentence that they marked. We talk about why we marked things and notice where people marked the same ideas or different ones. Their homework is to read and annotate the rest of the article, and when we come back the next class period the students get in groups and have a “what did you mark? Oh, this is what I marked” conversation before we begin the class discussion. I do this the first week of class, no matter the level. 

Summary: "Schema Theory Revisited"

Schema can be traced back to Kant. They highlight a give and take between culture and memory. Basically, we understand and organize our experiences based on prior knowledge, which is formed by social and cultural experiences. However, culture’s role in schema has been lost in current schema theory and its application to reading processes.

Schema theory was the driving force as reading models were developed in the 1970s and 80s. Studies have essentially proven that prior experience strongly influences one’s interpretation of a text. This is usually proven in research through the use of “bizarre” or “ambiguous” texts. Critics point out that these texts do not reflect the readings we encounter in normal situations nor in a classroom.

Research has not delved into schema origination, and the authors are interested in the role of social and cultural factors in schema development. They believe that “social and cultural considerations are the most critical and essential factors in schema acquisition” (541).

“Sociocultural theorists argue that schemas emerge from the social interactions between an individual and his environment” (547). If we look at reading from a socio-cultural perspective, we recognize that culture influences how we see the world—that is, how we pattern the world we live in. That patterning influences how we will interpret meaning not just in the world but in words.

The way that cognitive practices are influences by social practices is reflected in learning. A student who struggles with reading a text may better understand the material by talking about the reading with peers. He or she is then able to take that new understanding back into the cognitive sphere by writing about the text. Learning is recursive (see Vygotsky Space model, pg 548).

Classroom Practice:

The authors give an example of Mrs. Weber who taught a unit on racism. They read and discussed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” and read a book in which a young boy doesn't understand the use of the word “black” to describe people who were cinnamon, nutmeg, acorn, etc. After reading the passage, Mrs. Weber had all the children put their hands in a circle and notice the different shades and colors.

One child in Mrs. Weber’s class did not understand the purpose of this exercise or the book. He had lived in the U.S. for two years and, despite all the class discussion and context provided leading up to this particular reading, simply didn’t have experience of racism. Since he didn’t have that schema, he took the exercise and the book literally and could not see the figurative “lesson” behind it.

How, then, can new schema be acquired? And how do teachers help students who as language learners do not have the same schema as their classmates? It isn’t as simple as showing pictures or giving new pieces of information. Students struggle to make connections between packets of information.

The authors look at schema theory as being about more than “prior knowledge” but also about the social interactions that form that knowledge. In classroom practice, it may be necessary not just to give new info (that doesn't really create “schema”) but to allow students to interact, engage with and respond to new info in order to appropriate it as their own knowledge.

3 ways that sociocultural perspective helps us reframe schema theory:

1. 1.     Draws attention to issues of schema origin and development
2. 2.     knowing is a cultural process (it’s not just learner + info = knowledge)
3. 3.     highlights role of meditational tools (multiple languages, kinds of text and video, social interaction)

Conclusion:  “We have little understanding of how the schemas originate and develop or what role social and cultural factors play in these genetic processes” (556). Finally, the authors want us to consider the political implications of knowledge and knowledge transfer. 

Active Reading

Briefly discuss how you might teach or convey the ideas in "Active Reading" to a developmental reading writing class.  How would you help students to understand these processes and strategies? And how might we use writing to practice some of these readings processes and strategies?   I've posted a graphic organizer below to help you organize your ideas.

The article “The Active Reader: What is Active” by Cees van Woerkum splits the reading process into steps a reader takes before, during and after reading. Before reading, readers select (choosing to read the text), make inferences such as setting expectations, and activate questions. To explain these steps to a class, I’d ask students to consider texts that they are excited to read vs texts they feel drained and unmotivated to read:  what’s the difference? did the text make them feel this way or something else? how do students motive themselves to read a text that wouldn’t normally excite them? To incorporate writing, some pre-writing could be useful. I would have students jot down their expectations for a text (what will it be about, will they enjoy it, how long will it take to read?) and write a few questions they anticipate the text being able to answer.

Within the first few paragraphs of reading, a reader establishes a contextual framework for the text. As he or she continues to read, the reader creates ongoing inferences (reader-centric associations). The reader will focus—reading slower or faster as necessary for comprehension. And the reader will reflect—refuting and agreeing with the text. To explain this level of reading, I would ask students to consider their schema and write down what they already know about the topic—this is their contextual framework. What images come to mind as they read (ongoing inferences)? Finally, I could have students write a dialogue with the text, imagining a conversation with the author—what do they agree and disagree on?

After reading, a reader reflects on the text, seeks out further reading and discusses the information. I would explain to students that what they do after reading depends on their motivations for reading. Readers think about whether they want to know more and must consider how they will use the information from the text. To activate reflection, students could write a brief reaction to the piece and share it with their classmates. Some pre-research may also be useful:  ask student to consider what they might still want to know about the topic, text or author and how they would go about finding it. 

Literary Narrative

I became a reader the year that my parents divorced. At this time, my father set up a new household with a new wife just a few miles away. The new house included a bedroom for me and a bookcase filled with my new step-sister’s old books. The unknown stepsister was away at college. I was in third grade.

My dad’s new wife didn’t approve of television, and while we had a little Macintosh SE, the internet wouldn’t be online for another three to five years. I explored the garden a lot, and when it got too hot outside, I came inside and stared at my invisible step-sister’s bookcase. The books were mostly children’s mystery series: Nancy Drew, Trixie Beldon and the Hardy Boys. The Secret Garden was there, too, and The Hobbit.

Before this, I knew how to read, but I hadn’t read much for fun. And I certainly wasn’t “reading for fun” now. I was reading because I was bored, but that’s as good a reason as any. Every-other-weekend, when I visited my dad, I would pick out two or three or four books and then spend the entire weekend on the couch reading them.

If I were to extrapolate my own literacy history into a larger context, I would say that reading has to be discovered. What I mean is that while first I came to reading unwillingly (there was nothing to do, so I felt “forced” to read), I eventually found a type of book and story that I enjoyed. I bought in to the idea of reading for pleasure, and then I couldn’t be stopped.

Is there some way to encourage students to discover reading for themselves? One approach may be to introduce a wide variety of styles and topics for reading in a class in hopes that students will find something to connect with. Another idea is to require students to read X# of pages during a semester, but the topic of writing can be of their own choosing—from car maintenance to sports history to Flemish painting. As students specialize in their chosen area, they may learn to love reading in its own right. Or they may decide they hate car maintenance after all. 

My interest in teaching

Both my parents were musicians who taught for a living. I always wanted to be a writer, and I thought it might be a good idea to teach writing for a living. It started with tutoring at the Writing Center while I was in undergrad. After college, I worked for a literacy program in Milpitas. I just answered phones, but the organization was focused on bringing adult learners up to an 8th grade reading proficiency.

Then I went to grad school and for four years got to work as a GTA, teaching two classes per semester. Often it was Freshman Comp, but I also got to teach creative writing, poetry workshops and American Lit. It turned out I loved teaching.

There were things about teaching I didn't love. I'm introverted and even shy, so having the confidence to stand in front of 30 students for an hour or two was pretty unnerving at first, and I'm always exhausted after teaching. But I also enjoy it. I love the students and seeing them grow, I love the feeling when a lesson goes well, and I even rather like grading.

After grad school, I was an instructional assistant for a few years at American River College in Sacramento. I tutored and developed curriculum for their Writing Lab AND Reading Lab. This is where I first learned that there was such a thing as "reading departments" and "writing departments." It seemed silly. My students needed each for success as students.

Now I teach writing (basic skills and developmental mostly) as an adjunct at San Jose City College and there's an even bigger disconnect between Writing and Reading at this community college--they even hold separate department meetings, so Reading teachers and Writing teachers are rarely in the same room discussing the discipline of ENGLISH together. My students often comment that they're doing similar work in their Reading and Writing classes and ask my why they're listed separately at all. I have no good answer.

So that's how I came to teaching, and how I specifically came to loathe the idea of separated reading and writing curricula. My hope is that learning more about IRW and getting these two certificates will help me work toward their integration at my own college or move into a department that has already merged the two. It's better for teachers and students alike.