Teaching Annotation in Middle School

           I believe that annotating has helped my students in more than any other practice I have implemented in my classroom. Annotation helps students with their metacognition, critical thinking, and close reading skills. I teach annotation in the first few weeks to set the stage for the rest of the year. ANYTIME my students read for my class they should be annotating. The following is an overview of how I introduce this skill to students, the expectations I have, and how it benefits student learning.

   The lesson opens with a read aloud. My students always get really excited about this. I teach seventh grade and they still LOVE to be read to. I always use Goldilocks and the Three Bears; it is short and proves my point beautifully. After the story I move on to define the three types of thinking: literal, inferential, and critical.

Literal thinking is when we think about something a book or story that has actually happened, the author has told us this directly.

Inferential thinking is something you are thinking because of clues left in the story

Critical thinking is your own unique ideas, evaluations, or conclusions. Critical annotations will be very different from reader to reader and depend on the experiences, and attitudes of the reader.

Moving forward I share an example of each of these types of thinking to our story:

Literal: in the Three Little Bears, Goldilocks liked baby bear’s bed the best.

Inferential: It would be inferential thinking to state that Goldilocks was a picky eater. It is inferential because the story does not SAY she is picky, but we can infer this because she does not like Momma or Papa Bear’s porridge.

Critical: Goldilocks is a selfish, reckless person. I can make this critical statement looking at her pattern of breaking and entering, as well as her disregard for others’ personal property.

Moving forward I was to give students a chance to work on this in pairs and eventually on their own. For this purpose I like to use Greek myths. My classes are generally interested in the stories, have some background, and they are quick enough to start every class with for a few days.

We start as a class by reading and annotating a version of Pandora. After students have annotated the entire myth we share our annotations together, and I show them how I would have annotated this text.

We talk about how they can improve, redefine each type of thinking, and sharing our own reactions to the text. We start the next day in the same way using Pandora as our Myth. Again, the students read, annotations and compare their reactions to their peers and my own.

The third day we start reading our first whole class novel. This year my students have done an incredible job inferring and engaging critical in our first novel, Gilgamesh the Hero.

Take a look at some of these samples from my own class; I encourage everyone to explicitly teach and practice annotation in their own classrooms. If you want a copy of these lessons and student handouts you can find them here.          

Mind Maps post field trip

It's no secret I love the Mind Maps. You can read my initial blogpost on the subject here. I recently used them to assess my students understanding after a field trip. We are learning about migration and all things "moving people". We enhanced this learning by visiting the Haka Museum. This chronicles the migration of the Haka people from China to Indonesia. Many of the students on the trip and Indo-Chinese so this trip had specific significance for them personally.

When we returned to class, I asked the kids to show me what they learned at the museum about the Haka's Migration. This is what they came up with.....

Whole Novels in Middle School English

I ran across the book, and I'm mid-way through, but I couldn't wait to log my initial thoughts. Now, I don't want to toot my own horn but teaching novels is what I do best. I love teaching literary devices, morality, life, everything really through the lens of a novel. I have also been told by many an administrator, fellow teacher, parent, and students that this has been their favorite part of the learning in my class. Imagine my surprise when I read the back of this book and was told that I'm doing it all wrong. I immediately downloaded the sample and read it. The ideas are quite interesting..but not completely dissimilar to what I'm already doing. At any rate I bought it, am reading it, and will be implementing in my teaching.

The basic premise is this, allow students to read THE ENTIRE novel before discussions begin. This initially went against the grain for me. I was flooded with questions. What if the kids don't read the book? How will I know if they are understanding the material? What if they don't get everything in it? But then Ms. Sacks presented me with an analogy. What if I was watching a movie, and becoming absorbed in it, and the lights were turned on midway through and I was asked to make comments and predictions to prove I was indeed watching and "getting it". I immediately decided I would give this new approach a try.

Sacks gives many ways to ensure that students are understand and cites research which supports her theory/ program. She details how to use the program to teach literally themes and devices as well as making connection to writing. I am intrigued. I am enthralled. I love PD, even if it is self directed.
I'll record my progress and thoughts as I process and implement this new methodology. You can check out the book here on amazon.