Annotation Example:
Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.
I used two techniques for annotating the various works we read this semester. The first involved underlining and color-coding important, confusing, or new information. The second, and more significant technique, involved using post-it notes to comment on significant parts of the paper. Based on her work “Interrogating Texts: 6 Readings Habits to Develop in Your First Year at Harvard,” Susan Gilroy would probably not approve of the first technique as she urges first years to “Throw away your highlighter.” However, Gilroy would likely agree that my second technique is a much better way to “interrogate” the text. Gilroy encourages readers to “Get in the habitat of hearing yourself ask questions: ‘What does this mean?’ ‘Why is the writer drawing that conclusion’ ‘Why am I being asked to read this text?’” One example of this is on page 64 of Michael Chabon’s “My Son, the Prince of Fashion.” My annotation states “Q: So Abe has fashion sense, so what? What is the story driving at?” Here I was really frustrated as I had read a large portion of the piece and still did not understand the main point of the story. This is an example of how I interrogated the piece by Chabon.
This style of interrogating the text actually helped me develop the thesis of my first paper. On page 65 of “My Son, the Prince of Fashion,” my annotation reads “Why can’t Abe just do what he loves without being questioned?” I further elaborated on this in my blogpost “September 4, Chabon.” In this post, I examined why Abe struggled to express himself and discover his own identity, as well as what factors encourage self-discovery. The pushback Abe got for trying to express himself made me think of examples where I have personally seen this happen. This encouraged me to write my paper entitled “Dismantling Gender and Race Norms.” The thesis of my paper reads, “In order to break down gender and race barriers, one must personally choose how they want to express themselves independent of societal norms or labels and must be willing to accept someone for their choices regardless of which gender or race they associate with.” I used the case of Abe Chabon as an example of breaking down gender barriers to support my thesis.
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