COLLABORATIVE ANNOTATION

Targeted Skills:

• Recognize the features of different literary genres or perspectives

• Analyze a document for bias, point of view, structure, and context.

• Make inferences and draw conclusions based on explicit and implied information

• Peer-review, edit, and questioning 

What is it?

This is a technique that is used after students have already completed their own individual annotations on a poem or document; it is a great strategy to stimulate a small or large group discussion that engages and honors different perspectives on the same text. In groups of 3-5, students pass their annotated copy to the person on the right. Each individual focuses on, and makes additions to, the original reader’s commentary; the next time the papers pass, each individual adds his/her commentary to both of the previous readers’ commentary and this process continues until the original reader has his/her paper back. Thus, each student has had three or four people build and expand on his/her ideas; this is a powerful way to encourage engagement and group participation. (Note: It is important that students understand that they are to expand on the original reader’s ideas and/or questions, not simply add what ideas they had on their papers.)

What does it look like?

Below is a model of one student’s paper after two others added their collaborative annotations; each color represents a different student's annotations:

How could I use, adapt or differentiate it?

• Each student can simply underline and label several different examples of a single literary or rhetorical device, and the students that follow must create the interpretation or rationale for each example. For instance, student #1 identifies several effective diction choices, student #2 identifies several different images that contribute to the meaning of the poem, and student #3 identifies a number of effective uses of punctuation; as the papers pass, the other two students must interpret and/or explain the writer’s rationale for the identified examples, building on each other’s ideas. (Note: student #1 only identifies and labels, but does no interpretation or rationale)

• When teachers are developing mini-lessons on a newly introduced literary or rhetorical device, they can create their own annotated models for illustrative purposes. (note: Whenever possible, use a poem or passage that students have already studied or are currently studying as the basis for the model.)

From the Greece Central School District, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, English Language Arts Page, Reading Strategies available at http://web000.greece.k12.ny.us/instruction/ela/6-12/Reading/Reading%20Strategies/collaborative%20annotation.htm