Many people do not know the importance of annotating texts that they read, I did not as well, not until I started to learn the art of annotating and appreciating it. Why is annotating what you read so important?
How do we Annotate Texts?
Annotating texts is just like a way of communicating with the texts. Students who annotate will make comments in the margins, circle words they don't understand (and looking them up in the dictionary), take notes, and ask questions. All of these activities mean that a student is working actively with the text, doing her best to understand and analyze the book she's reading. This can be as simple as underlined or highlighted passages.
How Does Annotating Texts Help?
Annotating a text helps students retain more of what they have read. It is also a good technique because it deepens understanding of the text, especially when a student is reading something particularly difficult. Also, annotating texts actually helps allow the reader to understand the material better. While annotating a texts, a student will almost always find something that sparks an interest, such that he or her will be inclined to note down some important details for self-reference. Also, annotated texts will allow students to have a better understanding of the material, as they can look over their notes and areas in the texts they've identified as important. Also, this is quite beneficial, as most of the time, the annotations refresh a student's memory about the subject in detail.
I agree with you very much. I believe annotating text can go beyond simple highlighting and underlining (as many people do). For me when I annotate "To Kill A Mockingbird", I write a chapter summary of each chapter so that it is easy for reference. This also applies to any IH notes given to us by Ms Yeo. I believe that by annotating text, it makes it easier to memorise and we can familiarise ourselve with the text. In addition, as you mentions, it helps us find some important details we might have missed out if we were to just simply read. Other than annotating, there are various ways to help us with understanding a text or topic, for example, creating graphic organisers like concept maps, etc.
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