Teaching Student Annotation: Constructing Meaning Through Connections
- Resources & Preparation
- Instructional Plan
- Related Resources
Students learn about the purposes and techniques of annotation by examining text closely and critically. They study sample annotations and identify the purposes annotation can serve. Students then practice annotation through a careful reading of a story excerpt, using specific guidelines and writing as many annotations as possible. Students then work in pairs to peer review their annotations, practice using footnotes and PowerPoint to present annotations, and reflect on how creating annotations can change a reader's perspective through personal connection with text.
Featured Resources
- Making Annotations: A User's Guide : Use this resource guide to help students make connections with text through definition, analysis of author purpose, paraphrasing, personal identification, explaining historical context, and more.
From Theory to Practice
In his English Journal article " I'll Have Mine Annotated, Please: Helping Students Make Connections with Text" Matthew D. Brown expresses a basic truth in English Language Arts instruction: "Reading is one thing, but getting something of value from what we read is another" (73). Brown uses the avenue of personal connection to facilitate the valuable outcomes that can result from reading and interacting with text. He begins with student-centered questions such as, "What were they thinking about as they read? What connections were they making? What questions did they have, and could they find answers to those questions?" (73). Brown's questions lead to providing students with instruction and opportunities that align with the NCTE Principles of Adolescent Literacy Reform: A Policy Research Brief by "link[ing] their personal experiences and their texts, making connections between the students' existing literacy resources and the ones necessary for various disciplines" (5). Further Reading
Common Core Standards
This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.
State Standards
This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.
NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts
- 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
- 2. Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.
- 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
- 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
- 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
- 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
- 7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
Materials and Technology
- Copies of "Eleven" by Sandra Cisceros or other text appropriate for the activities in this lesson
- Colored Pencils
- Sample Annotation PowerPoint on The Pearl
- Making Annotations: A User's Guide or one students create after discussion
- Annotation Sheet
- Student Sample Annotations from "Eleven"
- Annotation Peer Review Guide
- Example Student Brainstorming for Annotation
- Sample Revised and Published Annotations Using Footnotes
Preparation
- Find sample annotated texts to share with your students. Shakespeare's plays work well since many of his texts are annotated. Red Reader editions published by Discovery Teacher have great user-friendly annotations geared toward young adult readers. Look for selections that are engaging—ones that offer more than vocabulary definitions and give a variety of annotations beyond explanation and analysis.
- Alternatively, search Google Books for any text with annotations. A search for Romeo and Juliet , for example, will bring up numerous versions that can be viewed directly online.
- While much of the work will be done by students, it is useful to take some time to think about the role of annotations in a text. You will have students identify the functions of annotations, but it is always helpful if you have your own list of uses of annotations so that you can help guide students in this area of instruction if necessary.
- Make copies of all necessary handouts.
- Arrange for students to have access to Internet-connected computers if they will be doing their annotations in an online interactive.
- Test the Literary Graffiti and Webbing Tool interactives on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tools and ensure that you have the Flash plug-in installed. You can download the plug-in from the technical support page.
Student Objectives
Students will:
- examine and analyze text closely, critically, and carefully.
- make personal, meaningful connections with text.
- clearly communicate their ideas about a piece of text through writing, revision, and publication.
Session One
- Begin the session by asking students if they are familar with the word annotation . Point out the words note and notation as clues to the word's meaning. If students know the word, proceed with the next step. If students are unfamiliar, ask them to determine what the word means by seeing what the texts you pass out in the next step have in common.
- Pass out a variety of sample texts that use annotations. If you are using Google Books , direct students to texts online to have them examine the annotations that are used.
- Have the students skim the texts and carefully examine the annotations. Encourage students to begin to see the variety of ways that an editor of a text uses annotations.
- Working with a small group of their peers, students should create a list that shows what effective annotations might do.
- give definitions to difficult and unfamiliar words.
- give background information, especially explaining customs, traditions, and ways of living that may be unfamiliar to the reader.
- help explain what is going on in the text.
- make connections to other texts.
- point out the use of literary techniques and how they add meaning to the text.
- can use humor (or other styles that might be quite different from the main text).
- reveal that the writer of these annotations knows his or her reader well.
- The process of generating this list should move into a discussion about where these annotations came from—who wrote them and why. Guide students to think about the person who wrote these ideas, who looked at the text and did more than just read it, and who made a connection with the text. It is important here that students begin to realize that their understanding of what they have read comes from their interaction with what is on the page. You may wish to jumpstart the conversation by telling students about connections you make with watching films, as students may be more aware of doing so themselves.
- touch them emotionally, making them feel happiness as well as sadness.
- remind them of childhood experiences.
- teach them something new.
- change their perspective on an issue.
- help them see how they can better relate to others around them.
- help them see the world through someone else's experiences.
- Before beginning the next lesson, create your Annotation Guide reflecting the different functions of annotation the class discussed today (or use the Sample Annotation Guide ).
Session Two
- Pass out "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros or any other text appropriate for your students and this activity.
- Read and discuss the story as needed, but resist spending too much time with the story since the goal of annotation is to get the students to connect with the text in their own ways.
- Pass out the Sample Annotation Guide or the one the class created and review the various ideas that were generated during the previous session, helping students to begin to think of the various ways that they can begin to connect to the story "Eleven."
- Pass out the Annotation Sheet and ask the students to choose a particularly memorable section of the story, a section large enough to fill up the lines given to them on the Annotation Sheet . (NOTE: While you could have the students create annotations in the margins of the entire text, isolating a small portion of the text will make the students' first attempt at annotations less daunting and more manageable. You can also use ReadWriteThink interactives Literary Graffiti or Webbing Tool at this point in the instructional process, replacing or supplementing the Annotation Sheet handout.)
- Share with students the Student Sample Annotations from "Eleven" and use the opportunity to review the various purposes of annotating and preview directions for the activity.
- Pass out the colored pencils. Make sure that students can each use a variety of colors in their annotating. Sharing pencils among members of a small group works best.
- Have the students find a word, phrase, or sentence on their Annotation Sheet that is meaningful or significant to them. Have them lightly color over that word, phrase, or sentence with one of their colored pencils.
- Students should then draw a line out toward the margin from what they just highlighted on their Annotation Sheet .
- Now students annotate their selected text. Using the Sample Annotation Guide , students should write an annotation for the highlighted text. They can talk about how they feel or discuss what images come to mind or share experiences that they have had. Any connection with that part of the text should be encouraged at this entry-level stage.
- Repeat this process several times. Encourage students to use a variety of annotations from the Sample Annotation Guide . But, most importantly, encourage them to make as many annotations as possible.
- What did they get out of writing annotations?
- What did they learn about the text that they didn't see before?
- How might this make them better readers?
- Students should take the time to share these reflections with each other and with the whole class. Collect responses to evaluate levels of engagement and to find any questions or concerns you may need to address.
Session Three
- Return annotations from the previous session and address any questions or concerns.
- Explain that, working in pairs, the students will examine each other's annotations and look for ideas that have the potential for further development and revision.
- Distribute copies the Annotation Peer Review Guide and explain how it will help them work together to select the best ideas that they have presented in their annotations. Peer review partners should label each annotation, comment on it, and look for several annotations that would benefit from revision and continued thinking.
- Have each pair narrow down their ideas to the four or five most significant annotations per student.
- Once this is done, give the students time to start revising and developing their ideas. Encourage them to elaborate on their ideas by explaining connections more fully, doing basic research to answer questions or find necessary information, or providing whatever other development would be appropriate.
- Circulate the room to look at what the students have chosen so that you can guide them with their development and writing. If you see the need to offer more guiding feedback, collecting the annotation revisions during this process may be helpful.
Session Four
- Once students have revised and developed a few of their annotations on their own, students should begin work toward a final draft.
- The students exchange their revised annotations.
- What is one thing that I really liked in this set of annotations?
- What is one thing that I found confusing, needed more explanation, etc.?
- If this were my set of annotations, what is one thing that I would change?
- Encourage students to rely heavily on the Sample Annotation Guide and the Annotation Peer Review Guide to make these comments during the peer review process. They should be looking to see that there are a variety of annotations and that the annotations dig deeper than just surface comments (e.g., definitions) and move toward meaningful personal connections and even literary analysis.
- Take the original format of the annotation sheet and have the students type up their work using colored text.
- Teach the students how to footnote, and then have them use this footnoting technique for the final draft of their annotations. See the Sample Student Brainstorming for Annotation and Sample Revised and Published Annotations Using Footnotes on The Great Gatsby . If using Microsoft Word, visit the resource Insert a Footnote or Endnote for information on how to use this feature in Word.
- Create a PowerPoint in which the first slide is the original text. The phrases are then highlighted in different colors and hyperlinked to other slides in the presentation which contain the annotations. See the Sample Annotation PowerPoint on The Pearl, and visit PowerPoint in the Classroom for tutorials on how to make the best use of PowerPoint functions.
- What did they learn by doing this activity?
- How did these annotations change their perspective on the text?
- In what ways did their thinking change as they worked through the drafting, rewriting, and revising of their annotations?
- Make sure that students are given time to share these reflections with each other and with the whole class.
- annotate a whole text, using the margins for annotating
- use sticky notes in textbooks or novels as a way to annotate larger works
- use annotations as part of a formal essay to provide personal comments to supplement the analysis they have written.
- Assessing Cultural Relevance: Exploring Personal Connections to a Text
- Graffiti Wall: Discussing and Responding to Literature Using Graphics
- In Literature, Interpretation Is the Thing
- Literary Scrapbooks Online: An Electronic Reader-Response Project
- Reader Response in Hypertext: Making Personal Connections to Literature
- Creative Outlining—From Freewriting to Formalizing
Student Assessment / Reflections
- Review and comment on student reflections after each step of the annotation drafting and revision process.
- If you use this lesson as an introduction to the idea of annotation, the focus of the assessment should be on the variety of annotations a student makes. Even so, teachers should be able to observe if students were able to move beyond surface connections (defining words, summarizing the story, and so forth) to deeper connections with the text (personal feelings, relating evens to past experiences, and so forth). Use an adaptation of the Annotation Peer Review Guide in this process.
- For those who take this lesson to its completion by having students generate a final published draft, the focus should move from just looking for a variety of annotations to focusing on the quality of the annotations. By working through the writing process with these annotations, students should have been able to comment meaningfully beyond what they began with in their “rough draft.” This should be most evident in the reflections students write in response to the process of creating annotations. Again, a modified version of the Annotation Peer Review Guide would be suitable for this evaluative purpose.
- Student Interactives
- Strategy Guides
- Professional Library
- Calendar Activities
The Webbing Tool provides a free-form graphic organizer for activities that ask students to pursue hypertextual thinking and writing.
- Print this resource
Explore Resources by Grade
- Kindergarten K
- Share full article
Advertisement
Supported by
Great Ideas From Readers
How Students and Teachers Benefit From Students Annotating Their Own Writing
Three ways to integrate annotation into the writing process that are inspired by our Annotated by the Author series.
By Matthew Johnson
A couple of years ago, we began a new series called Annotated by the Author, part of our Mentor Texts collection , in which we invite New York Times journalists, and winners of our student contests, to annotate their work, revealing the writing choices they made and explaining why they made them.
That series inspired Matthew Johnson, a writing teacher at Community High School in Ann Arbor, Mich. , to have his students try annotating their own writing. Below, he tells us how this kind of self-annotation can benefit both students and teachers. He also shares three simple, yet impactful, ways students can “talk” to their own work.
If you’d like to learn more about teaching with Annotated by the Author, and our other Times mentor texts, join us at our live webinar on Thursday, Oct. 21, at 4 p.m. Eastern .
And if you have an idea for teaching with The Times, tell us about it here or browse our full collection of Reader Ideas .
— The Learning Network
The first installment of The Learning Network’s Annotated by the Author series, where the science writer Nicholas St. Fleur dissects his article “ Tiny Tyrannosaur Hints at How T. Rex Became King ,” was an instant hit in my classes, and not just because it had a tiny dinosaur. For many students, the window into the motivations, methods and moves of a seasoned writer opened their eyes to what goes into professional writing and what their own writing can be.
Last year, The Learning Network began to have the winners of their student contests annotate their work, and, like the series, my instruction using these annotated pieces grew as well. We used Abel John’s discussion of citing evidence in his editorial “Collar the Cat” to help us define what makes a source useful and reputable. Varya Kluev’s and Elizabeth Phelps’s insights into descriptive writing were just right to seed a conversation about how to artfully extend metaphors. And just this fall, I shared Ananya Udaygiri’s explanation of why she picked Animal Crossing as the topic for her editorial to help some of my seniors pick the right college essay topics for them.
Choosing a Topic to Write About With Ananya Udaygiri
My name is Ananya Udaygiri And I am the author of ‘How Animal Crossing Will Save Gen Z.’ “Generation Z was born in the aftermath of 9/11, molded by the economic recession of 2008 and polished off by the coronavirus, the worst pandemic in a century, and that doesn’t even include the mounting crisis of climate change or the growing nationalism. Or the gun violence epidemic. Gen Z’s childhood is rooted in issues that would be unrecognizable only a decade prior. We are no strangers to a fight. So what drew us to a Japanese video game about living in a village with anthropomorphic animal neighbors? Like moths to a flame, or perhaps more appropriately, like children to their first love, Animal Crossing has captured the young teenage heart.” How did you choose this topic? So I wrote my essay in April, which obviously, the world was ending in April. So you began looking for those little pockets of calm. And within that I found Animal Crossing, which is this game that my friends and I love. I really wanted to talk about that feeling of peace that is so hard to find. And I was scared going in that I was writing about a video game. But ultimately, it was it was passion. It was something that I was passionate about. So I stuck on with it. “In a New York Times article focusing on Animal Crossing in the age of coronavirus, the author described how Animal Crossing was a miniature escape for those isolated by the pandemic. He labeled it as a bomb for the rushing tonnage of real world news. While that is certainly true, for Generation Z it encompasses all that and more.” I was a little relieved and surprised to find something about Animal Crossing, but actually that article really inspired more of my work because as I was reading through it, I noticed that I was thinking, oh, if only they had talked about how this relates to kids, if only they had talked more about Gen Z. And then I realized that, oh, I can do that. So going into my essay, it was inspired by other things I saw and other things that, more importantly, I wanted to see. “Our generation’s troubles are valid and growing. Buzzfeed News so aptly describes it as a ‘generation free-fall.’ So pick up your video game console. Load in Animal Crossing. Play the game. For Generation Z, Animal Crossing is hope, and it will save us all.” So my advice to any young writers wanting to participate in the contest is don’t feel pressured to choose a topic that doesn’t feel like you. You don’t have to write about political events that you don’t care about. You don’t have to write about economic trends in the stock market. Talk about things that matter to you. I wrote about video games. And I use simple language, but I’m more proud of writing this than any academic paper I’ve written for school.
As I watched these students in the series so thoughtfully dissect their pieces time and again, I also began to wonder why we don’t regularly have students annotate their own work in the classroom. Suggesting that students annotate, or talk to, texts as they read is commonplace, but before the Annotated by the Author series, I’d never seen someone ask students to annotate their own writing. Then, last winter, after reading Maria Fernanda Benavides’s particularly insightful explanation of how she shifted her sentence structure to match her emotions in her narrative “Speechless,” I decided to try having my students annotate their own writing, and I haven’t looked back since.
The Benefits of Annotation for Students and for Teachers
For students, the potential positives of unpacking and explaining their own writing were instantly apparent and significant. These are some of the common advantages I found:
Annotation develops metacognition . The act of annotation is the very definition of metacognition , which is when students think about their own thinking and processes. Engaging in this sort of metacognition has been shown to significantly improve student learning outcomes , in part because it requires students to actively engage in monitoring their own growth instead of relying on the teacher to do it for them.
It positions students as active, serious participants in their own writing growth . Regular annotation of their work also recognizes students as purposeful writers and decision makers who have something to say about their craft, which is very different from how student writers are often approached. This recognition can be both empowering and motivating, especially for students who have often felt that their voices weren’t heard by those around them.
And it makes students better readers. Annotating and unpacking their work can act as a safe training ground for students to learn to better dissect and discuss the work of others in workshops and peer review.
For teachers, student annotation can be equally useful, as it opens up the following opportunities:
It helps us to see students’ thinking. Annotation allows teachers a glimpse into the students’ inner monologues about writing. These monologues can help teachers better plan and calibrate lessons so they meet the needs of students.
It allows us to give more targeted feedback. Teachers can be more precise and responsive when providing feedback to and conferencing with students when that writing has annotations because they allow the teacher to see the student’s mind-set, process, understanding and motivations, and allow the teacher to respond accordingly.
And it reduces our workload. Annotation helps students to more accurately self-assess their work, which can save teachers significant amounts of time when it comes to assessment, even as it helps students better understand and chart their own learning journey.
Three Ways to Have Students Annotate Their Work
Once one starts to look for them, there are numerous places where student annotations of their writing might yield such positive results — so many that I feel I am just scratching the surface. Still, over the last year, I’ve found some particular areas where they’ve made the biggest difference in my classes:
Short, Skills-Focused Assignments
Much of my grammar and rhetoric instruction involves students writing shorter papers where they use a certain grammatical and rhetorical skill in the context of their own writing. I’ve found this type of grammar instruction to be far more effective than the grammar worksheets I used to do, but for many years I also found it more time-consuming to read and assess those extra papers.
This all changed, though, when students started annotating the choices they made. For example, in my class, we do a short unit on the grammatical tools writers can use to add emphasis (colons, dashes, appositives, parallel structure, purposeful fragments and so on). To assess their understanding of these “emphasizers,” I have my students write a rant on any topic that they want and then use the comments feature on Google Docs to explain how, when and why they used the tools we discussed in class.
By using the highlighted comments as a guide, I can now assess these pieces faster because I know exactly where to look. I can also assess them better because I can see in students’ own words how well they understand the concept.
Pre-feedback Moments
Feedback, whether it is from teachers or peers, tends to be a one-way street where the reader responds to the writer and then the conversation largely stops. I have found that while that approach can yield some growth, both peer and teacher responses often have a far larger impact when they are true conversations, especially when they are initiated by the author.
This is why I now have my students write annotations before getting peer and teacher responses to let the reader know what they are thinking, questioning and needing. Here is how I prompt them to do that:
These annotations don’t take long, but they often add a great deal — acting as icebreakers for conversation, ensuring that students get the help they need, and establishing a clear foundation from which both parties can work as collaborators toward improving the student’s piece.
Final Draft Self-Evaluations
More and more educators are growing interested in the idea of having students do meaningful self-assessment of their work in class. Self-assessment adds an additional layer of reflection and metacognition, and it can free up teachers to give feedback in the formative, or early, stages of student work, where it is most effective. Further, students assessing their work first can act as a bulwark against the possibility that students will feel blindsided or injured by grades and assessments because the teacher can see how they feel about their work first.
The trouble with self-assessment is that many students are unaccustomed to doing it, which can lead to problems with accuracy and students feeling unsure about how to evaluate themselves. Requiring students to use annotations to support their specific assessments can help with both of these issues: The act of finding and explaining the scores means that they need to be grounded in evidence, and the very act of looking for that evidence can help to train students in how to better assess themselves.
Here is the slide I use to prompt these kinds of self-assessments:
____________
Annotation can be a potent tool for helping students become better and more savvy readers, so it makes sense that it would also be a potent tool for helping students to become better and more savvy writers. The secret I’ve found to using it, though, is that the annotation needs to be meaningful. As soon as it feels more like a hoop to be jumped through, as can sometimes happen with misapplied classroom-required annotations during reading, all of the advantages of annotating their own work vanish in an instant.
This is why I explain much of what I share above with my students as a way to make a case for the value of annotating one’s own writing. It is also why I now use the essays from The Learning Network’s Annotated by the Author series both as mentor texts for the craft of writing and for the craft of learning how to dissect one’s own work.
Because when it serves a thoughtful purpose, student annotation is one of the most exciting pedagogical tools I’ve found in a long time — one that opens students up to what revision and writing can be, opens up the teacher to providing better and faster feedback and assessment, and generally opens up powerful lines of communication between both parties that often lie dormant.
Skip to Main Content
- My Assessments
- My Curriculum Maps
- Communities
- Workshop Evaluation
Share Suggestion
Annotated bibliography, lesson plan.
- Printer Friendly Version
- Grade Levels 8th Grade
- Related Academic Standards CC.1.2.8.A Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text. CC.1.2.8.B Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences, conclusions, and/or generalizations drawn from the text. CC.1.2.8.C Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas, or events. CC.1.4.8.B Identify and introduce the topic clearly, including a preview of what is to follow. CC.1.4.8.C Develop and analyze the topic with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples; include graphics and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension. CC.1.4.8.D Organize ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories; use appropriate and varied transitions to create cohesion and clarify the relationships among ideas and concepts; provide a concluding statement or section; include formatting when useful to aiding comprehension. CC.1.4.8.E Write with an awareness of the stylistic aspects of composition. • Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic. • Use sentences of varying lengths and complexities • Create tone and voice though precise language. • Establish and maintain a formal style.
- Assessment Anchors E08.B-K.1 Key Ideas and Details E08.C.1 Text Types and Purposes
- Eligible Content E08.B-K.1.1.1 Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences, conclusions, and/or generalizations drawn from the text. E08.B-K.1.1.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text. E08.C.1.2.2 Develop the topic with relevant, well-chosen facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples.
- Competencies
In this unit, students use their research to write an annotated bibliography, which they can use to help them write a research paper. Students will:
- analyze their research.
- finalize an annotated bibliography as the end of unit performance assessment.
Essential Questions
- What does a reader look for and how can s/he find it?
- How do readers know what to believe in what they read, hear, and view?
- How does a reader know a source can be trusted?
- How do grammar and the conventions of language influence spoken and written communication?
- Annotated Bibliography: A document that presents the research conducted about a specific topic while evaluating the sources.
120–160 minutes/3–4 class periods
Prerequisite Skills
- http://issuu.com/txstwritingcenter/docs/annotated_bibliography_mla/1
- copies of the Annotated Bibliography Organizer ( LW-8-3-3_Annotated Bibliography Organizer.doc )
- copies of the Annotated Bibliography Peer Review worksheet ( LW-8-3-3_Peer Review.doc )
- access to the Internet
Related Unit and Lesson Plans
- The Research Process
- Determining Credibility of Sources
- Building Credibility through MLA Citation
Related Materials & Resources
The possible inclusion of commercial websites below is not an implied endorsement of their products, which are not free, and are not required for this lesson plan.
- FedStats . Various primary sources are available.
- http://www.fedstats.gov/
Formative Assessment
- As needed, offer reteaching, more examples, or additional research time.
Suggested Instructional Supports
Instructional procedures.
Focus Question: How does a writer compile research in an organized way to create an annotated bibliography?
Start class with the journaling question from Lesson 1: What would the world be like if no one conducted research?
Have students retrieve their journal entries and read them. Ask if their opinions have changed. What have they learned about research? What have they learned about their question/topic? Students can answer any of these questions in their entry. Then have students get into groups and discuss their answers/research with their peers. After students discuss, ask for volunteers to explain what they have learned.
“During the last lesson, we discussed how to properly cite the research that you conducted about your topic. You also wrote a thesis statement that helped guide any additional research you needed. Today, we will learn how to compile your research in an organized way.
“Imagine that you are writing a research paper about your topic. After gathering several resources, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Where do you start? Writing an annotated bibliography accomplishes several functions: it helps you prepare a works cited page, helps you organize your evaluation of your sources, and gives you the opportunity to summarize the main points of each source. In short, it provides a blueprint that you can later use to write a research paper or presentation.”
Discuss the general format of an annotated bibliography. Use a writing text, a credible Web site (e.g., http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/01/ ), or http://issuu.com/txstwritingcenter/docs/annotated_bibliography_mla/1 to show students how annotated bibliographies should be formatted. Model how to create an annotated bibliography for the students, using real sources as examples so students can follow the process of collecting each piece of information that is needed for each entry.
There is no absolute standard for how annotated bibliographies are structured. It is a tool that is flexible in order to meet the needs of the researcher. “For the purpose of this assignment, write your thesis statement at the top of your annotated bibliography, followed by the citation entry for the first source.” Under the full citation, students include a short, formal summary of the source and at least one instance of in-text citation for that source. Students then comment on the credibility of the source and discuss how the source applies to the thesis statement. Students should repeat the process for each source. All of this is detailed in the Annotated Bibliography Organizer. In the final copy of the annotated bibliography, the sources need to be listed in alphabetical order by the first word in the entry.
Hand out copies of the Annotated Bibliography Organizer ( LW-8-3-3_Annotated Bibliography Organizer.doc ). This worksheet will help students organize their research into the correct format.
Provide time for students to complete the worksheet, using their own research and analysis to fill in the blanks. If possible, hold class where students can reference their research online. Have students complete the worksheet before the next class session.
“Over the past few lessons you have chosen a topic, evaluated resources, compiled evidence, and learned how to correctly reference information according to MLA (or your school’s) format. You have now completed the Annotated Bibliography worksheet. Before we begin transferring this information into a formal document, we will conduct a peer review.”
Form groups that include students of varied ability, and have them evaluate each other’s annotated bibliography worksheets. Hand students copies of a peer review worksheet ( LW-8-3-3_Peer Review.doc ). After the groups are finished, encourage them to ask each other questions. If there is time, allow students to look over their completed peer review sheets and brainstorm ways to improve their annotated bibliographies.
Collect their peer-reviewed worksheets and their annotated bibliography worksheets and provide written feedback. This way, you will evaluate both students’ ability to organize research and their ability to evaluate their peers’ work.
Hand out the Performance Assessment Scoring Rubric (the final page of this document) so that students know how they will be evaluated.
If possible, conduct class in a computer lab. If this resource is not available, then you can discuss what students need to do and allow them to complete the work at home.
Return students’ work that you had collected. “Now we will talk about how to transfer your work from the annotated bibliography organizer to a formal document.” The transition from worksheet to a word-processed document should be simple. If they haven’t already done so, tell them to organize their sources in alphabetical order by the first word in the entry (often the last name of the author). Then instruct students to include the following in a clean document: a header; a title centered at the top (which can simply read “Annotated Bibliography”); the thesis statement for the research project; the proper MLA citation for the first source, followed by one to three paragraphs that compose the summary (with at least one in-text citation), the source’s credibility, and the source’s relevance to the thesis. Students will then list the citation for the second source and include the subsequent analysis paragraphs. Continue this process until students have cited, summarized, and evaluated each source. Display a model for the class to reference if needed.
Collect the final draft of each student’s annotated bibliography.
- Students who might be going beyond the standards can incorporate additional research or apply their research to a presentation or research paper. These students can also help students who may be having difficulty.
Related Instructional Videos
- Authors and Poets
- College Students
- book lovers
- Teachers & Teaching
- High School Students
The eNotes Blog
Books, study tips, new features, and more—from your favorite literature experts.
- for teachers
- teaching literature
Teacher Resources: An Annotation Lesson Plan
An Introductory Lesson to Annotation
The first time I heard the word “annotate,” I think I was in college. Back in high school, my teachers just told us to “mark up the text.” It’s funny, because I remember all of them telling me to do that, but I don’t recall being told why I should or how it ought to be done.
I’m guessing I’m not alone here, but I’m also hopeful that the practice has become more commonplace since then. (The early oughts were a wild time.) Despite that, I’m sure there are plenty of students who don’t receive much instruction on how to create annotations; they’re just expected to write notes in the margins of their texts and figure things out.
How can we expect them to use such a vital tool without giving them some examples and practice first?
This post serves as an example lesson plan to help get students familiar with annotating.
When I first did this lesson in the classroom, at the time all I had was an overhead projector. If that is the technology you are working with, no problem! However, I’ve since converted things to work best with a computer-integrated classroom, but I’ve kept things variable in this post should your classroom arrangements differ from mine.
Preparation
First of all, this plan should be scheduled on a day when you’re assigning a new text for homework. This lesson can serve as part of your introduction to that new text and leads into the reading homework after class.
Preparation-wise, you need to copy the first paragraph or first page of the text in a larger-than-normal font with double spacing and print off a copy of this for each of your students plus another copy for each group. If you’re using an overhead projector, I suggest printing the group copies onto transparencies for displaying work on the overhead. If you’re using a computer lab, students can do this through shared documents, and you can show student annotations on the projector. If you’re having trouble finding a quick and easy digital copy of your desired text, we have an extensive library ! These pictures show you how the reading customization options work, and you could easily print out screen shots of your text selections or copy and paste the text into a word-processing document.
Ok, prep’s all done. Let’s move on to what to do during class.
The Main Event
Start off the lesson by asking your students what the word “annotation” means for them, and see what kind of feedback you get. Depending on your student population, this greatly varies—even among the same ages and grade levels. You are welcome to explain the word, but the goal here is not to give them too many suggestions about how to do it at this point. Collect ideas on the board or in an easy-to-display location.
Introduce the text you plan to assign for reading homework that night, and share any details about the story and author as you desire. Show the students the selection of text you’re working with for this lesson on the projector, and distribute copies of the text to each student.
Remind them of the ideas about annotations that the class gave earlier, and then ask your students to annotate the text as they normally would and to the best of their knowledge. This might take 5-10 minutes depending on your class or the length of your chosen text.
When students are ready, I suggest placing them into small groups. Depending on the layout of your classroom or computer lab, the numbers of students varies. Try to keep it to a maximum of 4-5 to ensure everyone can participate.
Once they’re in groups, have the students compare their annotated paragraphs. Some questions you could display on the board or projector include the following:
- What kinds of things did you mark in the text? Why did you mark them?
- Did you use any kinds of symbols? Which ones and why?
- What things did your group agree or disagree on annotating? Why did some people annotate one thing and not another?
Nominate one person in each group to act as a scribe, and give the groups some time for discussion. Monitor and assist as needed. This discussion will likely take around 10 minutes depending on the size of your groups and the level of your students.
After they’ve had a chance to talk things over, give the groups a fresh copy of the text, and have them work together to make a group copy of their annotations. This should include input from all group members.
Once this is done, have each group share what they annotated and why with the rest of the class. Add relevant insight to the board or wherever you kept the information from the short discussion at the beginning of class.
After all groups have shared, discuss the different priorities and strategies of the different groups, and use this as an opportunity to point out particularly effective ways of annotating. Feel free to convey whatever wisdom you like; I usually explain how annotations help me keep track of characters and big changes in the plot or serve as reminders to look things up later. Perhaps one of the most useful, and practical, things to tell your students is how a well-annotated text acts as a map of the story’s elements. Having such a map really helps when it’s time for students to write a paper or study for a test.
Store the class’s input on annotations, and use it as a reference for them to have access to in the future. Since they’ve built it themselves, the language that they’ve used will be more accessible and meaningful to them.
Annotation Homework
For homework, have your students read another section of the selected text. Give them a specific, annotation-related task to go with that night’s reading.
During the following class, you might consider reserving time to discuss your students’ experiences with the annotation homework before diving into the content of the reading itself. Learning how the experience went for them will greatly help you move forward with your future lessons.
Share this:
Discover more from the enotes blog.
Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.
Type your email…
Continue reading
- Title Index
- Blogging Pedagogy
Search Site
You are here, peer-to-peer review.
When revising a paper, a second pair of eyes is always useful. But who says those have to be human eyes? By utilizing a range of peer review technologies, your students get to play teacher for each other — and for themselves.
- Read more about Peer-to-Peer Review
- Log in to post comments
A Structured Approach to Teaching the OED as a Close Reading Tool
Using a structured worksheet, students explore a word of interest from one of the course readings through the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) online. The worksheet asks them to consider how the definition(s) of the word can help inform their textual analysis/close reading of a text.
- Read more about A Structured Approach to Teaching the OED as a Close Reading Tool
Annotation and Analysis with Genius.com (Formerly Rapgenius)
This lesson plan builds on Andrew Uzendoski's lesson on teaching close reading using Rap Genius (now called Genius), focusing on teaching students the process of annotation, as well as how to articulate the building blocks of
- Read more about Annotation and Analysis with Genius.com (Formerly Rapgenius)
Annotated Bibliographies with Canvas Discussion Board
This assignment introduces annotated bibliographies to the students as preparation for a longer homework assignment, and their first paper. In using a public forum, students will see that even annotated bibliographies containing the same sources are flexible products influenced by individual projects.
- Read more about Annotated Bibliographies with Canvas Discussion Board
Rap Genius Close Reading Exercise
This close reading assignment uses “Rap Genius”, an Internet annotation website, to connect each student with multiple audiences while also creating a forum where the entire class can pool their knowledge together in order to better analyze and understand the work of a specific author.
- Read more about Rap Genius Close Reading Exercise
Analyzing Ethos Using Twitter and Storify
Using the multimedia curation program, Storify, students compose a short writing assignment analyzing an "author's" ethos based on his or her Twitter feed. This demonstrates the ways in which ethos is cultivated over time and in a variety of different ways.
- Read more about Analyzing Ethos Using Twitter and Storify
Using Juxta to Compare Editions
- Read more about Using Juxta to Compare Editions
Collaborative Web Page Annotations With Diigo
This lesson introduces students to a collaborative annotation tool to facilitate class discussions and to encourage active reading and research practices.
- Read more about Collaborative Web Page Annotations With Diigo
- Generating Consensus on Textual Interpretation Through Circulating Critique
This exercise has groups of three students answer questions about an assigned reading; read and revise other groups' answers; consider other groups' revisions of their first answer; and revise their first answer--all in preparation for class discussion.
- Read more about Generating Consensus on Textual Interpretation Through Circulating Critique
Using Storify to Analyze Poetry
Students often conceptualize poems as monolithic objects from the past. This lesson plan helps encourage them to visualize and conceptualize the content and influence of a poem in different registers.
- Read more about Using Storify to Analyze Poetry
Google Docs - Crowd-Sourcing an Annotated Bibliography
Using GoogleDocs, students create a group bibliography page to practice summarizing and evaluating a source. They then engage in an informal presentation of their source to the class.
- Read more about Google Docs - Crowd-Sourcing an Annotated Bibliography
Editing Poetry: Manuscript to Printed Page
Students work on transcribing an Emily Dickenson poem from manuscript form into print. Their transcriptions are then compared with each other and with several printed editions of the same poem and used to discuss editorial decisions.
- Read more about Editing Poetry: Manuscript to Printed Page
Creating Individual "Infospheres" on the Web
The infosphere assignment calls on students to identify online sources of information they regularly take in and to create a representative structure for this information. Students must build their own unique infospheres and organize them as they see fit.
- Read more about Creating Individual "Infospheres" on the Web
Chronological Annotated Bibliography Using Dipity
Using the free digital timeline website, Dipity , students can organize and annotate their sources chronologically. This enables students to visualize the sequence of events and better address how particular texts interact with or talk past each other.
- Read more about Chronological Annotated Bibliography Using Dipity
Collaborative Annotated Bibliography with a PBWorks Wiki
Students worked together to create a collaborative annotated bibliography on PBWorks that covered a range of literary scholarship relating to the novels and poems on the course syllabus.
- Read more about Collaborative Annotated Bibliography with a PBWorks Wiki
- Recent content
- Popular content
- Top content (Fivestar)
Today's popular content
- Digital/Physical Library Scavenger Hunt
- Speed Dating with Thesis Statements
- Translating an Essay Into an Infographic
- Teaching Ethos Using Online Dating Profiles
- Color-coding Revision - Visualizing the Process
All materials posted to this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License . We invite you to use and remix these materials, but please give credit where credit is due. In addition, we encourage you to comment on your experiments with and adaptations of these plans so that others may benefit from your experiences.
- Generating Ideas
- Drafting and Revision
- Sources and Evidence
- Style and Grammar
- Specific to Creative Arts
- Specific to Humanities
- Specific to Sciences
- Specific to Social Sciences
- CVs, Résumés and Cover Letters
- Graduate School Applications
- Other Resources
- Hiatt Career Center
- University Writing Center
- Classroom Materials
- Course and Assignment Design
- UWP Instructor Resources
- Writing Intensive Requirement
- Criteria and Learning Goals
- Course Application for Instructors
- What to Know about UWS
- Teaching Resources for WI
- FAQ for Instructors
- FAQ for Students
- Journals on Writing Research and Pedagogy
- University Writing Program
- Degree Programs
- Majors and Minors
- Graduate Programs
- The Brandeis Core
- School of Arts and Sciences
- Brandeis Online
- Brandeis International Business School
- Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
- Heller School for Social Policy and Management
- Rabb School of Continuing Studies
- Precollege Programs
- Faculty and Researcher Directory
- Brandeis Library
- Academic Calendar
- Undergraduate Admissions
- Summer School
- Financial Aid
- Research that Matters
- Resources for Researchers
- Brandeis Researchers in the News
- Provost Research Grants
- Recent Awards
- Faculty Research
- Student Research
- Centers and Institutes
- Office of the Vice Provost for Research
- Office of the Provost
- Housing/Community Living
- Campus Calendar
- Student Engagement
- Clubs and Organizations
- Community Service
- Dean of Students Office
- Orientation
- Spiritual Life
- Graduate Student Affairs
- Directory of Campus Contacts
- Division of Creative Arts
- Brandeis Arts Engagement
- Rose Art Museum
- Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts
- Theater Arts Productions
- Brandeis Concert Series
- Public Sculpture at Brandeis
- Women's Studies Research Center
- Creative Arts Award
- Our Jewish Roots
- The Framework for the Future
- Mission and Diversity Statements
- Distinguished Faculty
- Nobel Prize 2017
- Notable Alumni
- Administration
- Working at Brandeis
- Commencement
- Offices Directory
- Faculty & Staff
- Alumni & Friends
- Parents & Families
- 75th Anniversary
- New Students
- Shuttle Schedules
- Support at Brandeis
Writing Resources
Lesson plan: annotated bibliographies, english .
To prepare students to write annotated bibliography entries
Total Estimated Time
Work completed before class.
Students have written research proposals and met with a reference librarian to discuss their research. For this class, students have read a critical article on the text we are reading.
There is a PowerPoint presentation that goes along with this lesson plan.
- Slide 1: Go over the elements of an annotated bibliography entry (5 minutes)
- Slide 2: Show students a sample annotation and ask them to map out what the author is doing in the entry. (5-10 minutes)
- Slide 3: Discuss the elements of a good annotation (clear distinction between summary and evaluation; smooth transitions; concise writing). (5-10 minutes)
- Ask students to work with a partner to write an annotation for the critical article they read for class today. They should discuss the three elements (the article’s subject, its argument, and their evaluation) and then write 1-2 sentences for each. (10 minutes)
- Slide 4: Ask one pair to write their annotation on the blank slide and have the class discuss. Did everyone agree with their statement of the article’s argument? Their evaluation? Revise together. (10 minutes)
- Slide 5: For our assignment, students were asked to write full annotations for some entries and one-sentence summaries for others. Show them a sample one-sentence summary and ask students to write their own. If there is time remaining, use the final slide for one or more students to share their sentences.
Lauren Holm and John Plotz
Developed at Brandeis University through a grant from the Davis Educational Foundation
- Resources for Students
- Writing Intensive Instructor Resources
- Research and Pedagogy
Faculty Spotlight
"I could not believe how effectively my colleagues had designed classes with a series of linked short writing exercises, culminating in a single longer piece of writing that was almost woven out of those bits and pieces. It's changed how I design both undergraduate and graduate classes."
7 Strategies for Teaching Students How to Annotate
- November 7, 2018
For many educators, annotation goes hand in hand with developing close reading skills. Annotation more fully engages students and increases reading comprehension strategies, helping students develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for literature.
However, it’s also one of the more difficult skills to teach. In order to think critically about a text, students need to learn how to actively engage with the text they’re reading. Annotation provides that immersive experience, and new digital reading technologies not only make annotation easier than ever, but also make it possible for any book, article, or text to be annotated.
1. Teach the Basics of Good Annotation
Help your students understand that annotation is simply the process of thoughtful reading and making notes as they study a text. Start with some basic forms of annotation:
- highlighting a phrase or sentence and including a comment
- circling a word that needs defining
- posing a question when something isn’t fully understood
- writing a short summary of a key section
Assure them that good annotating will help them concentrate and better understand what they read and better remember their thoughts and ideas when they revisit the text.
2. Model Effective Annotation
One of the most effective ways to teach annotation is to show students your own thought process when annotating a text. Display a sample text and think out loud as you make notes. Show students how you might underline key words or sentences and write comments or questions, and explain what you’re thinking as you go through the reading and annotation process.
Annotation Activity: Project a short, simple text and let students come up and write their own comments and discuss what they’ve written and why. This type of modeling and interaction helps students understand the thought process that critical reading requires.
3. Give Your Students a Reading Checklist
When first teaching students about annotation, you can help shape their critical analysis and active reading strategies by giving them specific things to look for while reading, like a checklist or annotation worksheet for a text. You might have them explain how headings and subheads connect with the text, or have them identify facts that add to their understanding.
4. Provide an Annotation Rubric
When you know what your annotation goals are for your students, it can be useful to develop a simple rubric that defines what high-quality and thoughtful annotation looks like. This provides guidance for your students and makes grading easier for you. You can modify your rubric as goals and students’ needs change over time.
5. Keep It Simple
Especially for younger or struggling readers, help your students develop self-confidence by keeping things simple. Ask them to circle a word they don’t know, look up that word in the dictionary, and write the definition in a comment. They can also write an opinion on a particular section, so there’s no right or wrong answer.
6. Teach Your Students How to Annotate a PDF
Or other digital texts. Most digital reading platforms include a number of tools that make annotation easy. These include highlighters, text comments, sticky notes, mark up tools for underlining, circling, or drawing boxes, and many more. If you don’t have a digital reading platform, you can also teach how to annotate a basic PDF text using simple annotation tools like highlights or comments.
7. Make It Fun!
The more creative you get with annotation, the more engaged your students will be. So have some fun with it!
- Make a scavenger hunt by listing specific components to identify
- Color code concepts and have students use multicolored highlighters
- Use stickers to represent and distinguish the five story elements: character, setting, plot, conflict, and theme
- Choose simple symbols to represent concepts, and let students draw those as illustrated annotations: a magnifying glass could represent clues in the text, a key an important idea, and a heart could indicate a favorite part
Annotation Activity: Create a dice game where students have to find concepts and annotate them based on the number they roll. For example, 1 = Circle and define a word you don’t know, 2 = Underline a main character, 3 = Highlight the setting, etc.
Teaching students how to annotate gives them an invaluable tool for actively engaging with a text. It helps them think more critically, it increases retention, and it instills confidence in their ability to analyze more complex texts.
More Resources articles
Ideas to Celebrate National Library Week and Encourage a Young Writer Day 2024
Inspiring young children to read, share stories, and write can help them build skills that will stay with them for years to come. April is
15 of the Best Math Picture Books for Kids
Math is around us everywhere, from the addition used when counting toys to the geometry of spotting shapes in the clouds. When you’re making a
Family Guide: Early Learning & Development Standards by Grade
Back-to-school season is such an exciting time for young learners. It’s the beginning of a year full of new milestones to come, including learning skills,
End Bullying: October is National Bullying Prevention Month
Phonics vs Phonological Awareness: A Guide Informed by the Science of Reading
MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving Awards Waterford.org a $10 Million Grant
- University of Texas Libraries
- UT Libraries
Information Literacy Toolkit
Annotated bibliography.
- Welcome to the Toolkit
- Assignment design rubric for research assignments
- Information Literacy rubric
- Avoiding Plagiarism Tutorial
- Background Information and Class Expert
- Citation managers and research organization skills
- Comparing Sources
- Developing a Research Question
- Developing and Researching a Controversy
- Digital Projects
- Everything But the Paper
- News and Media Literacy
- Primary Source Literacy
- How to Read a Scholarly Source (humanities)
- How to Read a Scholarly Source (sciences/social sciences)
- Research Log
- Research Question Abstract
- Self-Guided Tour of PCL This link opens in a new window
- Source Analysis/Evaluation
- Using Scholarly Sources (Synthesizing Sources)
- Why Use Sources Exercise
- Write for Wikipedia
- LAH 350: Treasure Hunt in Campus Archives: Discovering Islands of Order, Creating Original Humanities Research Projects
- RHE 368C: Writing Center Internship
- TC 302: Pathways to Civic Engagement
- UGS 303: Jerusalem
- UGS 303: Modern Day Slavery
- UGS 302: Social Inequality and Education in Latin America
- UGS 302: Tales of Troy
- Guides for Students
- Open Educational Resources (OERs) This link opens in a new window
Why assign an annotated bibliography?
Annotated bibliographies play a useful role in a scaffolded, semester long research project. Students can practice:
- Finding sources in library databases
- Evaluating sources for relevancy and authority
- Paraphrasing and quoting sources properly
- Using sources as evidence to support arguments
Things to consider:
- Find Articles
- Evaluate Sources
- Identifying Popular, Scholarly & Trade
- Guides to paraphrasing and direct quotes from our Writing Center
- Do your students know the unique roles played in research by primary, popular and scholarly info?
- Have you talked to them about what makes 'good' evidence in your discipline?
- Have you given them a target for number of sources required for the paper? Sometimes a range is best, as in, "Students who are successful in this assignment use more than X sources, but no more than X are usually necessary."
- NoodleTools is a free and helpful citation manager for your students. Users can create annotated bibliographies, use notecards to pull notes, quotations and paraphrasing from sources, and organize the sources into an outline. They can then share the project with you online, or export it as a document. Sample lesson plan here .
- Request a tailored assignment or session with a librarian
- Toolkit Feedback
Last updated 7/21
- Full Annotated Bibliography Assignment
- Sample Annotated Bibliography - Google Drive link
- Sample Annotated Bibliography - Download link
Annotated Bibliography Rubric
- Annotated Bibliography Rubric on Google Drive
- Annotated Bibliography (UGS 302) Rubric
- Last Updated: Feb 26, 2024 8:25 AM
- URL: https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/toolkit
- Help & FAQ
CollectiveTeach: A System to Generate and Sequence Web-Annotated Lesson Plans
- Computer Science
Research output : Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution
Despite an abundance of educational resources on the Web, there exists a gap between teachers and the efficient utilization of these resources. A fundamental component of teaching is the preparation of a lesson plan - an organized sequence of educational content - and for the most part, the task of generating lesson plans today is manual and laborious. To address this gap, we present CollectiveTeach, a platform that enables educators to generate lesson plans. CollectiveTeach has two main facets: (i) an information retrieval engine that gathers relevant documents pertaining to a topic, and (ii) a framework to sequence the retrieved documents into coherent lesson plans. We present a novel architecture that leverages information retrieval algorithms, data mining techniques, and user feedback to generate automated lesson plans. We built and deployed CollectiveTeach for 3 popular undergraduate Computer Science subjects: Algorithms, Operating Systems, and Machine Learning, on a corpus of ∼100,000 web pages. Further, we evaluated the platform in 3 phases: (1) computing the precision of the documents retrieved, (2) a user study with 10 participants who assessed lesson plans returned by CollectiveTeach based on appropriateness, quality, and coverage and (3) benchmarking our sequencing approach against the Beam-Search approach. Our results show that CollectiveTeach achieves high precision in retrieving content relevant to a user's query, users are satisfied with the appropriateness, coverage, and reliability of the generated lesson plans and that our sequencing approach is effective. These results indicate that CollectiveTeach is a promising platform that could enrich the lesson plan generation process and encourage collaboration amongst the community of educators and learners.
Publication series
Asjc scopus subject areas.
- General Computer Science
Access to Document
- 10.1145/3460112.3471938
Other files and links
- Link to publication in Scopus
- Link to the citations in Scopus
Fingerprint
- Information retrieval Engineering & Materials Science 100%
- Benchmarking Engineering & Materials Science 53%
- Computer science Engineering & Materials Science 51%
- Teaching Engineering & Materials Science 45%
- Websites Engineering & Materials Science 44%
- Data mining Engineering & Materials Science 42%
- Machine learning Engineering & Materials Science 37%
- Engines Engineering & Materials Science 32%
T1 - CollectiveTeach
T2 - 4th ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies, COMPASS 2021
AU - Ranawat, Rishabh
AU - Venkataraman, Ashwin
AU - Subramanian, Lakshminarayanan
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 ACM.
PY - 2021/6/28
Y1 - 2021/6/28
N2 - Despite an abundance of educational resources on the Web, there exists a gap between teachers and the efficient utilization of these resources. A fundamental component of teaching is the preparation of a lesson plan - an organized sequence of educational content - and for the most part, the task of generating lesson plans today is manual and laborious. To address this gap, we present CollectiveTeach, a platform that enables educators to generate lesson plans. CollectiveTeach has two main facets: (i) an information retrieval engine that gathers relevant documents pertaining to a topic, and (ii) a framework to sequence the retrieved documents into coherent lesson plans. We present a novel architecture that leverages information retrieval algorithms, data mining techniques, and user feedback to generate automated lesson plans. We built and deployed CollectiveTeach for 3 popular undergraduate Computer Science subjects: Algorithms, Operating Systems, and Machine Learning, on a corpus of ∼100,000 web pages. Further, we evaluated the platform in 3 phases: (1) computing the precision of the documents retrieved, (2) a user study with 10 participants who assessed lesson plans returned by CollectiveTeach based on appropriateness, quality, and coverage and (3) benchmarking our sequencing approach against the Beam-Search approach. Our results show that CollectiveTeach achieves high precision in retrieving content relevant to a user's query, users are satisfied with the appropriateness, coverage, and reliability of the generated lesson plans and that our sequencing approach is effective. These results indicate that CollectiveTeach is a promising platform that could enrich the lesson plan generation process and encourage collaboration amongst the community of educators and learners.
AB - Despite an abundance of educational resources on the Web, there exists a gap between teachers and the efficient utilization of these resources. A fundamental component of teaching is the preparation of a lesson plan - an organized sequence of educational content - and for the most part, the task of generating lesson plans today is manual and laborious. To address this gap, we present CollectiveTeach, a platform that enables educators to generate lesson plans. CollectiveTeach has two main facets: (i) an information retrieval engine that gathers relevant documents pertaining to a topic, and (ii) a framework to sequence the retrieved documents into coherent lesson plans. We present a novel architecture that leverages information retrieval algorithms, data mining techniques, and user feedback to generate automated lesson plans. We built and deployed CollectiveTeach for 3 popular undergraduate Computer Science subjects: Algorithms, Operating Systems, and Machine Learning, on a corpus of ∼100,000 web pages. Further, we evaluated the platform in 3 phases: (1) computing the precision of the documents retrieved, (2) a user study with 10 participants who assessed lesson plans returned by CollectiveTeach based on appropriateness, quality, and coverage and (3) benchmarking our sequencing approach against the Beam-Search approach. Our results show that CollectiveTeach achieves high precision in retrieving content relevant to a user's query, users are satisfied with the appropriateness, coverage, and reliability of the generated lesson plans and that our sequencing approach is effective. These results indicate that CollectiveTeach is a promising platform that could enrich the lesson plan generation process and encourage collaboration amongst the community of educators and learners.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116267606&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85116267606&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3460112.3471938
DO - 10.1145/3460112.3471938
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85116267606
T3 - Proceedings of 2021 4th ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies, COMPASS 2021
BT - Proceedings of 2021 4th ACM SIGCAS Conference on Computing and Sustainable Societies, COMPASS 2021
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Y2 - 28 June 2021 through 2 July 2021
How to Write an Annotated Lesson Plan for English Language Learners
Research-Based Reading Intervention Strategies
Writing a lesson plan for English language learners can be challenging, especially if ELL students only make up part of your classroom, or if your lesson is on a subject other than language arts. It is important to plan how you will use specific strategies to target English language learners in order to successfully teach them the material. For this reason, it is a good idea to annotate your lesson plans with ELL strategies in mind.
Planning the Lesson
Plan your lesson in three parts: Modeling, Guided Practice, and Independent Practice. Modeling is the first step, when you will introduce the concept and vocabulary. This is crucial for ELL students. Guided practice is the second step, when you and the students practice the new concept together. Independent practice is last step, when the students practice the concept on their own or in pairs and groups, under your supervision.
Choose an organizational format for your lesson. For example, make two columns -- the left column for notes on your actions, and the right column for corresponding student actions. This will help you remember to keep students involved throughout the lesson. Write all steps chronologically with details of the amount of time each activity should take. Planning the details and including clear directions throughout your plan will help English language learners follow your lesson.
Revisit your transitions and write out explicit directions for students. If they are going to sit on the carpet during the modeling, for example, write down where they will sit and for how long. If they are going to leave the carpet and work in pairs during the guided practice, write down how you will choose the pairs, when they will leave the carpet and where they will go. Smooth transitions are a major part of classroom management, aid in effective teaching, and help your ELLs to feel comfortable and secure in their learning.
Annotating the Lesson Plan
Highlight key words in your lesson plan. These should be vocabulary words that are crucial to the lesson, words with double meanings that may be hard for English language learners to understand, or commonly-used words that your ELL students need to practice. Make a list of the words somewhere on your lesson plan, so that you can write them on the board or chart paper in different colors before you teach. Aim for approximately five new words per lesson. Introducing too many new vocabulary words will overwhelm students.
Make or collect pictures to represent as many key words and concepts as possible. Visuals aid both ELL students and native English speakers in vocabulary comprehension and retention. Make notes on your lesson plan for when you will refer to visuals. Before or during your lesson, place the pictures next to the vocabulary words they represent.
Plan kinesthetic visuals to go with words. Movements such as running in place to represent the word "run" keep all students actively involved in the lesson. In addition, movements give language learners another layer of context to aid comprehension. Use movement when you cannot make or find a visual for a key word, or to reinforce the concept for multiple learning styles. Make notes on your lesson plan to remind you of when you will teach students a movement corresponding with a word.
Consider making your lesson plan bilingual. The amount of foreign language you use should depend on the makeup of your classroom and the levels of your ELL students. If most or all of your ELL students are native Spanish speakers, for example, you might say and write a key word in Spanish before translating it into English and using the visual. This will help students make the explicit connection between their native and second languages. Write translated words next to the key words on your lesson plan. Add these to the chart or board ahead of time, or during the lesson.
Review your lesson plan with attention to what your ELL students will be doing. Consider whether it is best in this lesson for your ELL students to work with native English speakers, or to be paired with each other. Consider where they will need to sit in order to see and hear you best. Make notes on your lesson plan: a list of partners, a seating chart if necessary, and any reminders concerning specific students will help make your lesson more effective.
- As an additional aid, you can have ELL students make vocabulary flashcards with pictures, or give them an envelope of words and pictures to review during and after the lesson.
Related Articles
Classroom Games & Activities That Teach Sequencing
The Difference Between Diagraphs & Blends
How to Teach Your Beginner ESL Students About Weather
How to Use Realia in ESL Lessons
How to Teach Syllabication to 4th Graders
How to Teach English to Russian Children
How to Pass Spanish Class the Easy Way
How to Teach Math to Students With Dyslexia
Emma Wells has been writing professionally since 2004. She is also a writing instructor, editor and former elementary school teacher. She has a Master's degree in writing and a Bachelor of Arts in English and anthropology. Her creative work has been published in several small literary magazines.
To read this content please select one of the options below:
Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, annotated lesson plans: the impact on teacher candidate preparation for emergent bilingual students.
Research on Preparing Preservice Teachers to Work Effectively with Emergent Bilinguals
ISBN : 978-1-78441-265-4
Publication date: 18 September 2014
This chapter explores the concept of annotated lesson plans. Teacher candidates annotated why modifications were made to their lesson plans to support emergent bilinguals. They included the research and theory to support such modifications. This research demonstrates the impact of annotated lesson plans on candidates in connecting their understanding of learning and language acquisition theories to actual classroom practices. Two questions guided the research: (1) Would annotated lesson plans assist teacher candidates in connecting language and learning theories to the modifications made in their lesson plans? (2) What was the impact of creating the annotated lesson plan on the teacher candidates, as expressed through their self-reflection of the process? Founded on the base of naturalistic inquiry (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), the data collected was contextualized within the frame of a teacher candidate course. Annotated lesson plans and accompanying reflection papers were gathered as data. These items were analyzed based on the guidelines established by Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Spradley (1980). Teacher candidates connected theories to their planned lessons. They demonstrated and expressed better understanding of related theories and methods. While a minority of the candidates expressed concerns with their overall preparation to educate emergent bilingual students, the majority of the candidates felt the lesson plans provided them with greater confidence in meeting the needs of such students. The implications of the study are that annotated lesson plans can better prepare preservice teachers for teaching emergent bilinguals.
- Teacher preparation
- Lesson plans
- Annotations
Hughes, C.A. (2014), "Annotated Lesson Plans: The Impact on Teacher Candidate Preparation for Emergent Bilingual Students", Research on Preparing Preservice Teachers to Work Effectively with Emergent Bilinguals ( Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 21 ), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 257-286. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720140000021009
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited
We’re listening — tell us what you think
Something didn’t work….
Report bugs here
All feedback is valuable
Please share your general feedback
Join us on our journey
Platform update page.
Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates
Questions & More Information
Answers to the most commonly asked questions here
- Skip to primary navigation
- Skip to main content
- Skip to footer
Center for Standards, Assessment, and Accountability
Resource Library
Annotated lesson: math example.
This sample lesson plan includes notes highlighting opportunities for collecting evidence of student learning.
Organization
Center on Standards and Assessment Implementation
Curriculum and Instruction
Back to the library
This site and its contents copyright © WestEd 2024. All rights reserved.
Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Accessibility | Visit WestEd.org
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Write this like a SMART goal! (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Based) Keep the objective simple. You may hit other Common Core State Standards in your lesson, but don't talk about that here.
Overview. Students learn about the purposes and techniques of annotation by examining text closely and critically. They study sample annotations and identify the purposes annotation can serve. Students then practice annotation through a careful reading of a story excerpt, using specific guidelines and writing as many annotations as possible.
Full Assignment Description: Rather than outline or map a group of sources in a 5-7 page written paper, in this assignment students find 6-7 sources form them into an annotated bibliography. Students should write 300-500 words about why each source is relevant and interesting. Part of the way this assignment is assessed is the degree to which ...
See model lesson for example of how this would look. Hook (about 5 minutes) - This is your chance to grab student attention, set the stage for new learning and make it memorable. This may be combined with the Introduction, below. • Motivate the students/pique their interest. • Make it as active/interactive as possible.
The Benefits of Annotation for Students and for Teachers. For students, the potential positives of unpacking and explaining their own writing were instantly apparent and significant. These are ...
Students will compile their research in an annotated bibliography organizer, which will help them organize their research and write an annotated bibliography. Students begin with an inductive journaling activity that assesses what they have learned from their research. Students receive direct instruction on how to write an annotated bibliography.
Collect ideas on the board or in an easy-to-display location. Introduce the text you plan to assign for reading homework that night, and share any details about the story and author as you desire. Show the students the selection of text you're working with for this lesson on the projector, and distribute copies of the text to each student.
This assignment introduces annotated bibliographies to the students as preparation for a longer homework assignment, and their first paper. ... Storify, students compose a short writing assignment analyzing an "author's" ethos based on his or her Twitter feed. This demonstrates the ways in which ethos is cultivated over time and in a variety of ...
Students have written research proposals and met with a reference librarian to discuss their research. For this class, students have read a critical article on the text we are reading. In Class. There is a PowerPoint presentation that goes along with this lesson plan. Slide 1: Go over the elements of an annotated bibliography entry (5 minutes)
Plan Rubric, #'s 15 & 21 on the Annotated Rubric). The Lesson Plans 1. Applicants submit three consecutive lesson plans; only the the middle lesson is annotated. 1. Student work must be included with all three lesson plans. 2. Photos or photocopies of student work need to be clear in order for the committee to evaluate the student work. Pre ...
Annotation Activity: Create a dice game where students have to find concepts and annotate them based on the number they roll. For example, 1 = Circle and define a word you don't know, 2 = Underline a main character, 3 = Highlight the setting, etc. Teaching students how to annotate gives them an invaluable tool for actively engaging with a text.
Users can create annotated bibliographies, use notecards to pull notes, quotations and paraphrasing from sources, and organize the sources into an outline. They can then share the project with you online, or export it as a document. Sample lesson plan here. Request a tailored assignment or session with a librarian. Toolkit Feedback.
How to Type an Annotated Lesson Plan for English Language Learners. Emma Wells - Updated May 17, 2019 . Tweet . Email . Print . Related. Research-Based Reading Intervention Marketing. Writing a lesson plan for Englisch words learners can be challenging, especially if CELLS students only make up part of your classroom, or if your lesson is set a ...
CollectiveTeach has two main facets: (i) an information retrieval engine that gathers relevant documents pertaining to a topic, and (ii) a framework to sequence the retrieved documents into coherent lesson plans. We present a novel architecture that leverages information retrieval algorithms, data mining techniques, and user feedback to ...
Annotating the Lesson Plan. Highlight key words in your lesson plan. These should be vocabulary words that are crucial to the lesson, words with double meanings that may be hard for English language learners to understand, or commonly-used words that your ELL students need to practice. Make a list of the words somewhere on your lesson plan, so ...
This research demonstrates the impact of annotated lesson plans on candidates in connecting their understanding of learning and language acquisition theories to actual classroom practices. Two questions guided the research: (1) Would annotated lesson plans assist teacher candidates in connecting language and learning theories to the ...
Table 1 presents the distribution, mean and standard deviation of our proposed lesson plan related theories. About 102 (67.55%) of respondents agreed or strongly agreed to the statement "Learning outcome and lesson plan has strong association".Almost two-third of respondents 109 (72%) agreed or strongly agreed to the statement "Formative assessment is one of the best components of lesson ...
An annotation is a statement that provides context for your evidence of professional learning and explains its significance. It is a story of your professional knowledge, practice, and engagement. It could be in the form of notations on an artefact (an individual piece of evidence, e.g. a lesson plan, piece of professional reading, or meeting ...
One (1) lesson plan or a lesson script for TV- or radio-based instruction with annotations identifying the research-based knowledge and/or principles of teaching and learning used as bases for planning / designing the lesson (please provide annotations of one's contribution to the video lesson) 3.
Annotated lesson plan. I am conflicted about how this lesson demonstrates my knowledge of the field. On one hand, I think that it does a good job of making connections between different representations of linear relationships. On the other hand, I think there is an element missing about what linear relationships actually are.
Theory-based lesson plan, seating. arrangement in the classroom, monitoring class activities, and teaching experience are essential for designing. and implementing lesson plans in the classroom ...
Annotated Lesson: Math Example. This sample lesson plan includes notes highlighting opportunities for collecting evidence of student learning. Download Resource Organization. Center on Standards and Assessment Implementation. Keywords. Curriculum and Instruction.