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As you work with your text, think about all the ways that you can connect with what you are reading. What follows are some suggestions that will help with annotating.

  • Plan on reading most passages, if not everything, twice. The first time, read for overall meaning and impressions. The second time, read more carefully. Mark ideas, new vocabulary, etc.

  • Begin to annotate. Use a pen, pencil, post-it notes, or a highlighter (although use it sparingly!).

    • Summarize important ideas in your own words.

    • Add examples from real life, other books, TV, movies, and so forth.

    • Define words that are new to you.

    • Mark passages that you find confusing with a???

    • Write questions that you might have for later discussion in class.

    • Comment on the actions or development of characters.

    • Comment on things that intrigue, impress, surprise, disturb, etc.

    • Note how the author uses language. A list of possible literary devices is attached.

    • Feel free to draw picture when a visual connection is appropriate

    • Explain the historical context or traditions/social customs used in the passage.

  • Suggested methods for marking a text:

    • If you are a person who does not like to write in a book, you may want to invest in a supply of post it notes.

    • If you feel really creative, or are just super organized, you can even color code your annotations by using different color post-its, highlighters, or pens.

    • Brackets: If several lines seem important, just draw a line down the margin and.underline/highlight only the key phrases.

    • Asterisks: Place and asterisk next to an important passage; use two if it is really important.

    • Marginal Notes: Use the space in the margins to make comments, define words, ask questions, etc.

    • Underline/highlight: Caution! Do not underline or highlight too much! You want to concentrate on the important elements, not entire pages (use brackets for that).

    • Use circles, boxes, triangles, squiggly lines, stars, etc.

  • Literary Term Definitions:

    • Alliteration - the practice of beginning several consecutive or neighboring words with thes ame sound: e.g., "The twisting trout twinkled below."

    • Allusion - a reference to a mythological, literary, or historical person, place, or thing: e.g., "He met his Waterloo."

    • Flashback - a scene that interrupts the action of a work to show a previous event.

    • Foreshadowing - the use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest future action

    • Hyperbole - a deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration; it may be used for either serious or comic effect: e.g., "The shot heard 'round the world."

    • Idiom - an accepted phrase or expression having a meaning different from the literal: e.g., to drive someone up the wall.

    • Imagery - the words or phrases a writer uses that appeal to the senses.

    • Irony - there are three types;

      • verbal irony - when a speaker or narrator says one thing while meaning the opposite; sarcasm is a form or verbal irony: e.g., "It is easy to stop smoking. I've done it many times."

      • situational irony - when a situation turns out differently from what one would normally expect; often the twist is oddly appropriate: e.g., a deep sea diver drowning in a bathtub is ironic.

      • dramatic irony - when a character or speaker says or does something that has different meaning from what he or she thinks it means, though the audience and other characters understand the full implications: e.g., Anne Frank looks forward to growing up, but we, as readers, know that it will never be.

    • Metaphor - a comparison of two unlike things not using "like" or "as": e.g., "Time is money."

    • Mood - the atmosphere or predominant emotion in a literary work.

    • Oxymoron - a form of paradox that combines a pair of opposite terms into a single unusual expression: e.g., "sweet sorrow" or "cold fire."

    • Paradox - occurs when the elements of a statement contradict each other. Although the statement may appear illogical, impossible, or absurd, it turns out to have a coherent meaning that reveals a hidden truth: e.g., "Much madness id divinest sense."

    • Personification - a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics: e.g., "The wind cried in the dark."

    • Rhetoric - the art of using words to persuade in writing or speaking.

    • Simile - a comparison of two different things or ideas using words such as "like" or "as": e.g., "The warrior fought like a lion."

    • Suspense - a quality that makes the reader or audience uncertain or tense about the outcome of events.

    • Symbol - any object, person, place, or action that has both a meaning in itself and that stands for something larger than itself, such as a quality, attitude, belief, or value: e.g., a tortoise represents slow but steady progress.

    • Theme - the central message of a literary work. It is expressed as a sentence or general statement about life or human nature. A literary work can have more than one theme, and most themes are not directly stated but are implied: e.g., pride often precedes a fall.

    • Tone - the writer's or speaker's attitude toward a subject, character, or audience; it is conveyed through the author's choice of words (diction) and details. Tone can be serious, humorous, sarcastic, indignant, etc.

    • Understatement (meiosis, litotes) - the opposite of hyperbole. It is a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is: e.g., "I could probably manage to survive on a salary of two million dollars per year."

    Definitions from: Laying the Foundation: A resource and Planning Guide for Pre-AP English