0:00

This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to

0:02

episode 227 of the Cult of Pedagogy

0:04

podcast. In this episode, we're

0:06

going to talk about two effective classroom

0:09

tested ways to teach students how to

0:11

mark up and take notes on a

0:13

text, also known as

0:15

annotation. If

0:28

you were to open up any book I own, you

0:30

would probably see my handwriting on some of the pages.

0:33

You'd also see lots of underlining,

0:35

brackets around whole paragraphs, and check

0:37

marks, question marks, and exclamation points

0:39

in the margins. The

0:42

more of these marks and notes a book has, the

0:44

more I probably got out of it. Every

0:47

time I stopped to take a note or

0:49

make a mark, I was processing what I

0:51

read more deeply, making connections, reminding myself of

0:53

things I wanted to remember later. And

0:57

when I need to return to one of those

0:59

books to pull out some key information or ideas,

1:01

I flip through and look for those marks, knowing

1:03

they'll serve as roadmaps to the things that

1:06

resonated most with me. No

1:08

one ever taught me to do this. I think

1:11

at some point I started noticing books with notes

1:13

scribbled in them, and I thought, oh

1:15

wow, I didn't know you could do that. And

1:17

from then on, if I owned a book, I was going to

1:19

have a pen nearby when I read it. In

1:22

the world of literacy instruction, many

1:24

teachers would call this process annotation.

1:27

It's a way of reading actively and

1:29

making your thinking visible, and it can

1:32

improve comprehension of challenging texts. Although

1:35

some people develop their own style

1:37

of annotation independently, presumably

1:39

a natural outcome of regular exposure to

1:41

good books and the permission to write

1:43

in them, others may

1:46

benefit from some instruction. While

1:48

annotation is taught in many classrooms,

1:50

the way it's taught can vary

1:52

widely, and some approaches work

1:54

better than others at helping students find

1:57

an annotation style that works for them

1:59

in the future. inside and outside

2:01

the classroom. In

2:03

today's episode, I'm talking with two teachers

2:05

who have developed their own methods for

2:07

teaching annotation that accomplish that goal. Andrea

2:10

Castellano teaches third grade in New York

2:12

City and works part-time for Cult of Pedagogy.

2:15

This is her second time on the podcast. She

2:18

was my guest on episode 193, where

2:21

we talked about ways to affirm the language of

2:23

students who code switch. Early

2:25

in her career, Andrea taught her students

2:27

to annotate in a pretty formulaic way,

2:30

with specific things to look for and

2:32

prescribed marks to go along with them.

2:34

But she found that her students weren't using any

2:37

of these methods on their own. They

2:39

only did it when she assigned it to them. She

2:41

then shifted to a more natural, personalized

2:44

approach, working toward helping students develop a

2:46

style of their own, and she's gotten

2:48

much better results. Over

2:51

on Cult of Pedagogy, Andrea has written a

2:53

guest post, where she shares that process step

2:55

by step. She also

2:57

shares the annotation approach used by

2:59

her colleague, Irene Yannescholi, who teaches

3:02

10th grade. Irene

3:04

uses a collaborative process, where students

3:06

work together to annotate, further refining

3:08

their individual styles and deepening their

3:10

understanding of text. Today,

3:13

Andrea and Irene will explain how each

3:15

process works. Before

3:17

we start, I'd like to thank StudyO

3:19

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3:22

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3:35

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3:48

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3:56

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Start a free trial today

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at listenwise.com. Now

5:06

here's my conversation with Andrea

5:08

Castellano and Irene Yanezcole about

5:10

the art of annotation. Well,

5:12

let's first start by telling everybody who you

5:15

are. Irene, we'll start with you because this

5:17

is Irene, or this is Andrea's second time

5:19

now. Is it

5:21

the second or the third time on? It's the second time

5:23

on. So Irene, tell

5:25

us who you are and what you teach.

5:29

My name is Irene Yanezcole. I teach 10th

5:31

grade English in Brooklyn, New York. I've

5:35

been working for the New York City Department of Education for

5:37

15 years, and this

5:39

is my fourth school. So I've been kind of

5:42

working on a variety of techniques with a

5:44

variety of different populations for a while now.

5:47

Okay, great. Andrea. Yeah,

5:50

so I teach third grade in Brooklyn, and

5:53

I've taught in the DOE, Department

5:55

of Education, for I believe

5:57

this is my 21st year, and I

5:59

should... But only early grades, like first

6:01

grade, second grade, third grade. So we

6:04

have a, you know, a range of who we work

6:06

with in terms of the age levels and also the

6:09

populations here. Has

6:11

it been primarily for you the younger, like,

6:13

K through three grades most of the time?

6:16

Yes, the whole time, actually. Okay. Okay.

6:19

And Andrea also works part-time for

6:21

me. She's one of the people

6:23

behind the scenes who does

6:26

email checks and checks on social media

6:28

and kind of makes sure that people

6:30

get their questions answered. And you have

6:33

also written a post for me before

6:35

about language-affirming spaces in classrooms. So,

6:38

Andrea, you and I started to

6:40

talk about this post a

6:42

long time ago. It was like a year ago. And we

6:45

were talking about annotation. And

6:47

one of the things that I had said to you

6:49

that when I was a middle school language arts teacher,

6:52

annotation was not as kind of

6:54

trendy as it seems to have

6:57

gotten in the years since then.

7:00

I left the classroom full-time in 2005. So

7:04

since then, I've seen a lot more

7:06

of these kind of like boxes and

7:08

stars and color-coded things. And

7:10

it seems to have become much more

7:13

of a thing now. And

7:16

you and I were talking about how do,

7:19

where did that come from? What do you do?

7:21

It seems like it's an important practice. So tell

7:23

me a little bit about what you remember about

7:25

that conversation. Right. So,

7:27

you know, you were saying as a

7:29

middle school teacher that you kind of

7:32

expect kids to know how to annotate,

7:34

at least a little bit. And

7:36

we started talking about the process of teaching

7:38

them to annotate in the first place. And,

7:41

you know, as a former first grade

7:43

teacher, there was one kind of way

7:46

that most teachers did teach. And

7:48

it was like, you know, they would read the text

7:50

as a shared reading. And they would put the little

7:52

star by something they thought was important. And

7:55

they would underline something, you know,

7:57

maybe a new word that the teacher said, you

7:59

know, this work. And

8:01

they would say, okay, put a heart by this

8:03

part because you like it. And

8:05

there was the put a smiley face by the

8:07

part that makes you happy. So it was very,

8:10

you know, teacher directed, and and

8:12

somewhat prescriptive. And this was something that

8:14

we would do for kids who were

8:16

just starting out, you know, and they

8:18

needed that guidance, maybe. But what I

8:20

noticed is, as a third grade teacher,

8:24

that system wasn't really working for my kids.

8:26

So I realized I had to develop something that would

8:28

bring them to the next level. And

8:31

part of that is, you know, teaching them

8:34

to be active readers

8:36

to be thoughtful readers, and

8:38

to trust themselves as readers when they find

8:40

something important in the text, that

8:43

they they value

8:45

what they value, you know, not

8:47

because a teacher said important, but

8:49

because they found something valuable

8:51

in it. And that's, um, it's a

8:53

whole mindset shift, you know, starting to

8:56

trust yourself as a reader, that what

8:58

you what you think is important is

9:00

worth writing about or annotating. And it's

9:02

a whole process that we started to go

9:04

through. So that's

9:06

what we're going to be talking about today

9:09

is the process that you use to get

9:11

to your current style

9:13

of teaching students annotation. And

9:15

then you said, Hey, I

9:17

have this colleague, Irene, who teaches

9:19

high school, who also does annotation

9:21

with her students. And it would

9:24

be interesting to see the method

9:26

that Irene uses to, you

9:28

know, not necessarily teach her kids

9:30

how to do annotation, but have them

9:32

do this really cool collaborative process. So

9:35

after we talk about your process, we're going to

9:37

then hear from Irene about how

9:41

students do annotation in her class. And our

9:43

hope is that this will help

9:45

any teacher who is wanting to do more

9:48

annotation, maybe seeing that it's not doesn't seem

9:50

like that great of a practice. I think

9:52

I've heard sometimes I've heard kids say, Oh,

9:54

I hate annotation. And I think it might

9:56

have even been my own kids said that

9:59

at one point. And I said, why? And

10:01

they described something that was very rigid.

10:04

And it sounded like they really didn't get

10:06

anything out of it. And so that kind

10:08

of stuck out to me too. When

10:13

you say, because

10:16

one of the things that you said earlier was,

10:18

it wasn't really working for me, for my third

10:20

graders. What were you noticing

10:22

that made you think that? Well,

10:24

I mean, I noticed that they were just resistant

10:27

to it, first of all. They didn't see the

10:29

value in it. And unless I was

10:31

standing over them saying, underline something,

10:33

they weren't going to do it. And

10:37

then when it came to

10:39

determining what was even important

10:41

in the first place, what I quickly

10:43

realized was they didn't have the confidence

10:46

or the knowledge even

10:51

to decide for themselves what was

10:53

important. So they would just underline randomly anything,

10:55

which wasn't helpful. It

10:58

didn't help them to understand the text any better.

11:00

They were just going through the motions. So

11:03

that's why they needed something that

11:05

was a more responsive approach that

11:07

was self-directed. And that's why we

11:09

are here. And that

11:12

actually kind of resonates exactly with the way my kids

11:14

sort of treated it when they talked about it, when they

11:16

would come home and say that they had annotation.

11:18

It was just, they didn't get anything out of it. So

11:22

explain for us how

11:25

you teach third

11:27

graders now to

11:29

annotate in a more, what we're calling

11:31

a more responsive way. Well,

11:34

it's a process. And

11:36

it does take a long time. And

11:38

that's intentional because what

11:41

we're doing is we're doing a whole mindset shift

11:43

in how we approach texts. And this

11:45

is not something you can do in three

11:47

to four lessons. It's not a strategy, per

11:49

se. It's

11:52

a practice. So that being

11:55

said, what we're doing

11:57

is, and actually, I about

12:00

the mindset shift, meaning we're

12:02

not looking for answers in the

12:04

text. We're not going

12:06

in and seeking certain elements or

12:11

checking off things on a

12:13

checklist. What we're

12:15

doing is we're approaching the text with an open mind

12:18

and we're seeing what resonates with us.

12:21

So like I said before,

12:23

teaching them to trust themselves and

12:25

to really be, you know, to engage

12:27

with text in an interactive way, it

12:31

requires a lot of practice and

12:33

feedback for them to get to the point

12:35

where they can be confident

12:37

in what they're doing. So

12:40

I start with a lot of modeling, really

12:42

just having them see and hear what

12:47

that looks like from me. And I'm

12:49

a person who reads, if I

12:51

need to really read and understand something, I'm not

12:53

talking about like a light story or something on

12:55

the beach, but if I'm reading to understand, I

12:57

have a pen in my hand. I'm

13:00

even taking notes on the side. This is

13:02

just my practice as a reader because I

13:04

process differently with that pen in my hand.

13:07

And so it's easy for me to say, you

13:09

know, I'm reading these

13:12

two paragraphs to you and I'm

13:14

gonna stop here and underline this. And I'm gonna

13:16

tell them, I'm gonna think out loud what

13:19

my process is, why I underline that

13:21

thing. If I circle something,

13:23

I'm gonna tell them why I circled it. And

13:25

it may not always be exactly consistent, but I

13:27

try to keep it consistent for, you know, just

13:30

not just like make it

13:32

chaotic for them, but most of the

13:34

time I'm circling certain like words. I'm

13:37

underlining full sentences, I'm writing notes in

13:39

the margins, things like that. And

13:41

they watch me do it. And then

13:44

after that, then it's time

13:47

for them to practice it. So I'll do

13:49

a small chunk at a time. I'll give

13:51

them a paragraph and I'll prompt them with

13:53

the, you know, certain questions like underline

13:55

one sentence that

13:57

seems important in this paragraph. Okay.

14:00

everybody underline, okay, let's talk about why.

14:02

So that not only do they immediately

14:04

try it, they get to hear from

14:06

their peers and sort of like gauge

14:09

where they are in relation to everyone else

14:11

and everyone else's thinking. And

14:13

the beautiful thing about it is it

14:15

can go either way. One, if

14:18

they agree with everyone and everyone agreed

14:20

with them, then that is a reinforcement

14:22

of its own. And then if they

14:24

had a different perspective and they thought

14:26

of something that someone else didn't think

14:29

of, that also reinforces the idea

14:31

that we don't all have to have the

14:33

same response. We don't all have to

14:35

have the same annotations in

14:37

order for us to all be making meaning from

14:39

the text. So we learn from each other, okay,

14:41

this person said this thing, I never thought of

14:44

that. And it becomes sort of a collaborative process

14:47

in those small moments. And

14:50

that's really continually reinforcing this idea that

14:52

there's not a right way to do

14:54

this. There's not a right answer that

14:56

we're all looking for, which is

14:58

really what you originally were hoping to

15:01

get to, that this is a very

15:03

personalized, customized thing

15:05

for each person. Right, and that

15:08

doesn't mean that you can just do whatever.

15:11

There are things that elements of

15:13

text that we need to be aware of and

15:15

look, we look for. So I have a list

15:17

of look fors. And these are

15:19

some of the things that might come up regardless

15:22

of what kind of texts we're reading, like we're

15:24

looking for main idea, central message, what is the

15:26

author really saying to us? How is the author

15:29

really saying these things? So we look at language

15:31

choice, word choice, style, things like

15:33

that. And so over time,

15:36

they start to realize, when

15:39

I find these things, these are the things worth

15:41

noting in addition to my

15:43

own reactions. So let's

15:46

talk a little bit about the template. One

15:48

of the things that you do in your

15:51

process, getting them used to doing this is

15:53

you actually have a template. I'm gonna describe

15:55

what I'm looking at. There's

15:58

a left and a right column. left column is

16:00

much wider than the right and that is

16:02

where you actually physically paste in the passage

16:05

that students are going to be reading. And

16:07

so the idea being that you want to

16:10

really have it structured ahead of time so

16:12

that that reduces the cognitive load

16:14

for them. And

16:16

then in the right side is where you have

16:19

left space for them to take notes. And

16:22

I should remind people that are listening

16:24

out. Like I said this earlier, we're

16:26

going to have this all outlined in

16:28

a post that you and

16:31

Irene have collaborated on to actually share

16:33

this whole process out. So if people

16:35

are listening and they're interested, this is

16:37

all written out for you in

16:39

a really nice blog post. But

16:42

you've got the text on one

16:45

side and then in the right side

16:47

there's space for writing about two separate

16:49

focus areas. You've got

16:51

one is focusing on content and

16:53

the other is focusing on craft.

16:56

So with that template you give

16:58

that to students and you start

17:00

this modeling process by using that.

17:03

So tell me a little

17:05

bit more about how the template helps

17:07

students learn to annotate in your class.

17:11

So the template basically breaks

17:13

the two lenses apart into

17:15

keywords and ideas in

17:17

craft and structure. So because

17:20

my kids are eight years old, I don't

17:22

want to start with everything. Like it's too

17:25

overwhelming. I just start with me

17:27

really, really simple, the keywords and

17:29

ideas. What words seem important here?

17:32

What words are being repeated? What

17:34

sentences maybe it's the topic sentence

17:36

of the paragraph and we just

17:38

start to annotate only for things

17:40

that really seem important. And

17:42

that again grounds it back in the

17:44

idea that what is important to you

17:47

is valuable. And

17:50

so then we look for trends. I

17:53

would model what I think is important in

17:55

one paragraph. They practice with what's important in

17:57

another paragraph. We share out and

17:59

then I say, okay. for the rest of the time, you're

18:01

going to go through paragraphs 3, 4, 5. You're just going

18:03

to underline and, you

18:06

know, annotate what seems important.

18:09

Then we move on, we add more things.

18:12

Once we've moved through all the keywords and

18:15

ideas through the annotation, look for us, like

18:17

we might look at, you know, perspective or

18:19

like different moments that indicate main idea, things

18:21

like that. Once we go through keywords and

18:23

ideas, we move into craft and structure. Usually

18:26

that's a whole different day because

18:28

at that point, you know, they're done. So the next

18:30

day we come back, okay, we're going to look at

18:32

maybe how the text is organized. Can

18:35

we find some clues as to what

18:37

the organizational structure of the text might

18:39

be? Do we see words that indicate

18:42

maybe it's like a sequence text or maybe

18:45

a problem and solution? Where can we annotate

18:47

and find those things? So I'm kind of

18:49

guiding them through stopping to say that these

18:52

are all things that they've been taught already.

18:54

I'm not starting this process in September. I'm

18:57

starting this process after I've pretty much taught

18:59

into all of the skills. You know, we

19:01

have different skills that they

19:03

need to learn for reading based on what the

19:06

standards are for the grade. And

19:08

they've been exposed to all of this.

19:10

So having taught all this, we can

19:12

speak about it at

19:14

this point, January, February, once

19:16

it's all familiar. So like, let

19:18

me just, yeah, so I just wanted to make

19:20

sure it's clear that we're not

19:22

teaching these skills as we're annotating. They

19:25

already know them. Okay. So we're just

19:27

identifying things. We're looking for these things

19:29

that we already know that we would find

19:31

in text because we've already practiced finding them

19:33

in text before, but in, you know, in

19:35

the form of a different, you

19:38

know, questioning thing like things like that. So

19:40

let me get back on track with the

19:42

with the craft and structure. They're each two

19:44

separate days. And we, we

19:46

have the model, we have the practice. And

19:49

then what we do over time, once they

19:51

sort of get the rhythm of it, we,

19:53

we put it together. So I'll give them

19:55

the whole thing in the template and

19:57

I'll say, okay, go and annotate. And I'll let you know. look

20:00

at what they come up with. My

20:03

response is, what did

20:05

you do? Well, what seems to

20:07

be the areas that they're

20:09

not paying attention to, and that determines

20:11

my next lessons. So if there's something

20:13

like figurative language, nobody pulled out the

20:16

figurative language from a poem, but

20:18

they all found rhyming words. Now I know

20:21

what we need to practice annotating for. Okay,

20:23

good. Yeah. I would do a form

20:26

of assessment as we go, and

20:28

it just reinforces maybe the things that they

20:30

need to practice. Over time,

20:32

the template does go away. You

20:35

know, I can just give them a regular text,

20:37

and I'm still telling them to annotate for keywords

20:39

and ideas. And because they've done it in a

20:41

more structured way, they now do it without the

20:43

box. You know, and even

20:46

over time, they may not need the reminders. I'll

20:48

just tell them, at this

20:50

point in the year, we're in April,

20:52

annotate your text. And they go,

20:55

they just go. So it's a it's a scaffold.

20:57

It's not a permanent thing. And

20:59

I find it that gradual release

21:01

of responsibility, really to

21:03

be based on how they're doing over

21:05

time. Some kids are, you

21:07

know, they're ready to let go earlier, other

21:10

kids really need that template to remind them

21:12

of exactly what to do for a little bit

21:14

longer. So that

21:16

template, we're going to provide that in your

21:18

blog post so that if people would like

21:20

to first of all, they'll be able to

21:23

see it in the post, but then we'll

21:25

provide a link to share that so that

21:27

if people want to not have

21:29

to reinvent the wheel, they can grab a copy of that

21:31

and use it with their

21:33

students to you were saying

21:35

that they were they did well by the end

21:37

of the year, do you see by the end

21:40

of the school year that most of your students

21:42

are independently annotating in a way that looks really

21:44

meaningful? Oh, yeah, there's

21:46

such a huge difference. And

21:50

they tell me as well. But what

21:52

I'm seeing is that it's the it's

21:54

an automatic behavior. Now, they

21:56

don't even need to be prompted.

21:59

We have our test tomorrow. I must

22:02

say this is not for helping

22:04

them pass the state test.

22:07

That's not what this is

22:09

about. But because they are

22:12

being tested, this does help

22:14

them to process

22:16

texts. And I've seen that even in

22:18

the last two weeks, three

22:21

weeks, it's just become,

22:23

since we started, something

22:25

that become, that something that is, that is,

22:27

they take ownership of, I guess is what

22:29

I'm trying to say. I

22:32

don't have to prompt them. They actually

22:34

would one student came to me, she's like,

22:36

I can't wait for you to see my

22:38

homework, how I annotated the text. Like, this

22:40

is something that was even done outside of

22:43

class, that she was just proud of the

22:45

fact that she has this skill now. And

22:47

it, you know, they find value in it.

22:50

Absolutely. Yeah. And that's the

22:52

idea. This is these should not be things that

22:54

are only used in school for class assignments that

22:56

they see. I mean, I'm trying to

22:58

read a book right now on school choice, the

23:00

history of school choice, it is dense, it is

23:03

so much history. That thing is

23:05

marked up. And I've been thinking this whole time,

23:07

we've been working on this post together. So I'm

23:09

thinking a lot more about my annotations and why

23:11

I make the things that I do. But it

23:13

absolutely is such an important

23:16

skill if you ever have any

23:18

plans to read things that are challenging. And

23:20

so the fact that you're teaching your students

23:22

the value of that and how to do

23:24

it for themselves is fantastic. Can

23:27

I just say like this practice is not part

23:29

of the provided curriculum? That

23:32

this is something that we do

23:34

in addition to, I'm an elementary

23:36

and students, either they're reading real

23:39

text, you know, from the classroom library, where

23:41

they can't write in them because they're

23:44

not their books, or they're

23:46

reading in nasal readers where they have like

23:48

these designated boxes for note taking. So

23:52

usually, annotation is relegated to test

23:54

prep. But I

23:57

don't want them to to annotate just because they

23:59

have to answer. a question, you

24:01

know, and that's my whole driving motivation

24:04

behind this. I really want them to

24:08

engage with the text like in a personal

24:10

way, you know, in a meaningful way, regardless

24:14

of what the end result of the reading

24:16

process might be, whether it's answering a question

24:18

or, you know, going off and doing something

24:20

else. It's like self-fulfilling

24:22

practice. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

24:25

I think that's a really good model for any teacher

24:28

listening that even if you

24:30

have a prescribed curriculum, you can

24:32

add on these practices that will

24:34

probably only help the students

24:36

do well in whatever curriculum is handed

24:39

to them because these are just good

24:41

literacy skills. Exactly.

24:43

Okay, we are going to

24:45

shift to Irene. And again, let's have

24:47

a reminder, this is 10th grade. So

24:49

at this point, we're assuming

24:52

that your students have had maybe some

24:54

practice with annotation. So talk

24:57

to us about what your

24:59

approach is. So

25:03

I originally started

25:05

working on this sort of collaborative

25:07

annotation approach several years ago. I

25:10

was working at a different school at the time, and

25:12

it was a smaller school where they had sort of

25:14

a set of tasks

25:16

that they wanted students to practice across all

25:18

four years. And

25:20

at the time, I was teaching 11th and

25:23

12th grade, and annotation was one of the

25:25

tasks that the team identified as wanting to

25:27

teach all the way through at different levels.

25:30

And so I was in a classroom

25:32

with 11th and 12th graders who were

25:35

doing sort of what Andrea described, where they

25:37

were annotating usually without prompting, you

25:39

know, some kids needed it, some kids didn't. But

25:43

overall, kids were annotating without prompting.

25:47

And it was something that we sort of were expecting them

25:49

to do at that point. And

25:51

something that I noticed while

25:54

conferencing with students and having them pull out

25:56

their notes on their readings or on

25:58

their learning. was

26:00

that there was a lot of annotating

26:03

about sort of comprehension level stuff

26:05

like this word means or you

26:07

know this is interesting to me

26:09

but not as

26:11

much annotation around sort of like

26:14

higher level concepts or asking big

26:16

questions or making connections between

26:18

different parts of the text. The

26:21

other thing that I noticed from my students

26:23

was everyone had their individual

26:25

annotation practice but I

26:27

ended up having this question of like what are

26:29

we what are we doing with this? Where is

26:32

the annotation going and what is

26:34

the purpose of it besides something that the kids

26:36

know to move their pens across the page when

26:38

they get a task or when

26:40

they get something to read and

26:42

it just started to feel

26:45

the more I asked that question the

26:47

more sort of disjointed and disconnected from

26:49

the actual

26:52

learning the annotation felt to

26:54

me. I think sometimes when

26:56

we see a kid marking up their page

26:58

we think oh that looks like learning but

27:00

how do we know that

27:02

they actually are learning or that there

27:05

is a cognitive process at play and

27:07

so that was sort of when I

27:09

became interested in making the process collaborative

27:12

so that students were able to share what they

27:15

were thinking and use the annotation

27:17

as a way to really get

27:21

into and dig into kind

27:23

of bigger concepts or ideas.

27:26

So when I moved to this new

27:28

school that I where I teach now it's

27:31

a much larger school and so there

27:33

aren't as many of those sort of

27:35

commonalities between kids. Kids will have had

27:38

a variety of different experiences with different

27:40

learning habits like annotation when they arrive

27:42

in my 10th grade classroom and

27:45

you know 10th grade is really a time

27:47

where we are moving them this sounds obvious

27:49

but we're moving them from 9th grade to

27:51

11th grade and that's a really big shift

27:53

actually right when students are in 9th grade

27:55

there's a lot of prescriptive stuff that's going

27:58

on because sort of because we have have

28:00

to. I've taught ninth grade. For the first

28:02

half of ninth grade, they're really still in

28:04

middle school, right? So you're trying to move

28:07

them intellectually into a place of being more

28:09

self-directed. And tenth grade is that

28:11

critical year, and this is kind of why I like

28:13

teaching tenths, where we're trying

28:15

to move them from being more

28:17

dependent learners into more independent learners.

28:21

And so what I find in with

28:23

my tenth graders is they have a

28:26

variety of independent annotation practices. So when

28:28

we make it collaborative and we agree

28:30

on a set of guiding

28:32

questions, which are sort of my

28:34

version of look forward, that

28:37

that helps them to have a little

28:39

bit of a container for what they

28:41

do when they annotate, but it still

28:43

provides them enough flexibility to kind of

28:45

meet the text on their own term.

28:47

But then when they're all sort of

28:49

meeting the text on their own terms,

28:51

but they're doing it together, there's all

28:53

of this building of ideas that

28:56

happens, and they're able to see

28:58

how one set of ideas

29:00

might lead into another set of ideas. And

29:03

you know, hey, I noticed that you said

29:05

this, let's make that more complex so that

29:08

we can up the level of engagement. And

29:10

they really are able to challenge each other.

29:14

You know, there's a little side like point

29:17

that I have, which is that it also helps to

29:19

teach them how to talk to each other. So it

29:22

does end up being a little bit

29:24

of a preparation for Socratic seminar and

29:26

discussion as well. And it

29:29

does a lot of little things that I don't

29:31

always name, but there's there's kind

29:33

of a lot of levels to the process. Yeah,

29:36

oh my gosh, I want to

29:38

annotate the last two

29:40

minutes of what you just said, because it's like there's

29:42

all these little points that I'm just like, so

29:44

let me just maybe if I

29:46

can just try to like paraphrase back to you what you're

29:48

saying. So one of the things

29:51

that you noticed early on was that kids

29:53

were coming to you with all these different

29:55

varieties of annotation skills, but you were questioning

29:57

whether there was even a whole lot of

29:59

depth. cognitively that was going on

30:01

it. They were doing something but they're what

30:04

you didn't really couldn't really tell and question

30:06

whether there really was depth and

30:08

so now what you have them

30:10

do is this collaborative process where they do some

30:13

individual annotations but then come together and we're going

30:15

to talk about sort of the steps of that

30:18

and that not only deepens what they're

30:20

doing but then it

30:22

also gives them practice in this

30:24

verbal conversation about text which is

30:26

something everybody desperately needs now especially

30:29

post COVID we need more time

30:31

just talking to each other. So

30:36

let's and I'm assuming that

30:38

as you've done this well I'm going to ask

30:41

you this later I'm gonna I'm gonna make a

30:43

verbal note now I want to remind myself to

30:45

ask you also has this have

30:47

you found that this has deepened

30:49

students sort of comprehension of text

30:52

and or their own individual annotations

30:55

but let's start with how how does

30:58

this collaborative process work? So

31:01

the first thing that I do

31:03

with the collaborative process and this

31:06

is a part of making the

31:08

annotation responsive as opposed to prescriptive

31:11

and like Andrea noted

31:13

it's really not a way to teach any

31:15

skills it's a way to practice things that

31:17

we've already learned so I

31:19

decide on a set of four

31:22

kind of core competencies in my

31:24

class that students have had a

31:26

an opportunity to practice many

31:28

times so I don't do this

31:30

group annotation protocol until towards the end

31:33

of the first marking period or sorry of

31:35

the first semester or the beginning of the

31:37

second semester so we're like sort of halfway

31:39

through the year when we start the group

31:42

annotation process. Okay what are those

31:44

what are those four core competencies because one of

31:46

the things that we sort of note in here

31:48

is that this is not just a language

31:51

arts thing that this these four competencies

31:53

these could look different depending on what

31:55

your subject area is but in your

31:58

class what are they? Absolutely.

32:00

So in my class, I

32:02

use a more of a skills-based

32:04

approach to assessment as well as

32:06

instruction. And so we focus on

32:08

skills that are transferable across a

32:10

variety of texts and a variety

32:13

of tasks. So in the

32:15

very beginning of the year, we learn

32:17

about identifying and analyzing. So anytime in

32:19

English class when I am given a

32:21

text or even if I'm starting to

32:23

write, what I need to do is

32:25

I need to note what I notice

32:27

and I need to name that thing.

32:30

So that's identify. So I'm reading

32:32

this text. I notice that the

32:34

sun is being described as

32:37

a flower. I

32:39

notice that and now I'm naming it. It's

32:41

a metaphor or it's assimilate depending on whether

32:43

they use like or add. And

32:46

then at the analyze level, they're explaining

32:48

how that what they notice relates to

32:50

a main idea or a bigger or

32:52

a bigger idea. And then

32:54

they're drawing connections. So they're starting to

32:56

actually think about what is the purpose

32:58

of what I've noticed. So

33:01

that's sort of what we work on in the

33:03

first sort

33:05

of quarter of the year-ish. You

33:08

know, it's never really a quarter, but

33:10

the first quarter. And

33:13

then as we move into the third and

33:15

fourth quarters, the later parts of the year,

33:17

we start to learn about evaluating

33:19

and synthesizing. So when we're evaluating

33:21

texts, we're judging the impact of

33:24

that text. And we're

33:26

we're judging how

33:28

successful it is at a set of ideas

33:32

or look for us. And that's going to depend on the type of

33:34

text that we have. And then

33:36

when we work on synthesize, we're working on

33:38

putting it all together. How can I look

33:40

at everything I've learned and

33:42

draw connections between that and the text that

33:44

I'm dealing with in this moment? So

33:48

those are sort of my

33:51

four core competencies. They're identify,

33:53

analyze, evaluate, and synthesize. So

33:56

this is very specific to me, but your

33:59

four competencies could be symbolism

34:02

metaphor. I'm

34:06

sorry, I know I keep making all these spaces,

34:08

because the more I think about this, I'm thinking

34:10

this could definitely work in a history class. This

34:12

could definitely work in a science class, because these

34:15

are just, I mean, this is kind of blues.

34:17

It is blues. Yeah. And

34:19

you could attack almost any text

34:22

in any subject area by noticing

34:25

things, making some connections to other

34:27

things that you've learned or things

34:30

within the text. You can evaluate

34:32

whether it's the way that

34:34

the information is presented, and or if

34:36

it's like science, you can be evaluating,

34:39

are they using the scientific process the way that

34:41

they should be? Is this a well-designed study?

34:44

Are there holes in the research or something? And

34:46

so I kind of feel now,

34:48

I know we've talked about this a lot,

34:50

but really these four competencies could fit in a

34:52

whole lot of different subject areas also. They

34:55

can, yeah. So

34:57

I didn't make this up. This comes out

34:59

of a practice that was developed at the

35:01

school where I used to work, which uses

35:03

competency-based education. And

35:06

from the very beginning of the school,

35:09

we basically tried to identify a

35:11

set of skills that could work

35:13

across disciplines so that every student

35:15

is assessed on those set of

35:17

competencies. And at

35:19

this point where the school is at now, they

35:22

have eight core competencies that the students are assessed

35:24

on across all disciplines. So there's only

35:26

eight rubrics and outcomes that all the

35:28

students in that school are assessed on. So

35:31

I'm moving into this new environment

35:34

where it's a big

35:36

school, and every teacher has sort of

35:38

their own assessment strategy. So I have

35:40

to kind of think about how can

35:42

I make this usable for students but

35:44

without increasing their cognitive load too much?

35:46

Because imagine having eight different classes with

35:48

eight different assessment strategies. That's a lot

35:51

to keep track of, especially as a

35:53

kid. So I

35:55

decided I sort of shifted. I changed

35:57

the way I did it based on

35:59

my environment. But I

36:01

didn't make this up. I don't want to seem

36:04

like I invented this approach to assessment. But

36:07

what I am doing is I'm taking

36:09

the way that I'm assessing and I'm

36:11

turning it into an annotation process. So

36:14

for any teacher who's wanting to do

36:16

this, who maybe doesn't have the assessment

36:18

process, assessment strategy that I have, you

36:21

just want to think about what are kind

36:24

of the four important moments or elements of

36:26

teaching that you've been teaching into that you

36:28

want students to practice. So that could be

36:30

a set of content. You

36:32

know, like if you're having them do a lab

36:35

report, it could be what are the four important

36:37

elements of a lab report and that

36:39

lets annotate for those things. And each

36:41

person takes one element and notices where

36:43

it is and analyzes why it's there.

36:46

Okay. So, you know, this can

36:48

be shifted to any

36:51

set of four real core

36:53

competencies, skills or content that

36:55

you are trying to reinforce

36:57

in your classroom. Okay. So

37:00

from there, I basically take those four

37:03

competencies and I create a set of

37:05

guiding questions for each. And

37:07

the guiding questions are really

37:09

based on actions that you

37:12

do when you are doing

37:14

this competency. So for

37:16

identify, for noticing and naming, the

37:18

questions I ask are what

37:21

are the important terms and vocabulary

37:23

that you notice that is translatable

37:26

to an actual action that you

37:28

can do? I notice this piece

37:31

of vocabulary, right? In

37:33

analyze, I ask what

37:38

themes are addressed and how do the

37:40

literary devices develop that theme? So these

37:42

are very kind of specific guiding questions

37:45

related to, okay, when I'm

37:47

doing this competency, when I'm doing this

37:49

skill, this is what I do. So

37:53

what I have found successful about these

37:55

guiding questions in my classroom is they

37:57

actually make the skills visible to the

37:59

kids. So I

38:03

often let students decide which skill they

38:05

would like to focus on, but you

38:09

can also assign it based on student

38:11

performance. So if I have a student

38:13

who's been struggling with Analyze, I might

38:15

say, okay, you're annotating for Analyze today.

38:19

And that's a way for them to

38:21

sort of practice with the guiding questions,

38:23

how to analyze, and then they're in a

38:26

group of people, so they're getting some support

38:28

and some feedback around their analysis. Okay.

38:31

By the way, for people listening, we're

38:33

going to actually have, we're going to

38:36

give them your guiding questions so

38:38

that they can see those. One

38:41

question that I had for you was, is this a

38:44

checklist? Are they supposed to be? Because

38:46

again, then it could start to verge

38:48

into prescriptive territory. Are they required to

38:51

answer all the guiding questions as they

38:53

annotate? Yeah, I

38:55

do not require them to answer all the

38:57

guiding questions as they annotate. They really, for

39:00

me, do serve as sort of

39:02

the same version of look for in Andrea's approach.

39:06

And they're just a way to really kind

39:08

of make visible what I'm asking them to

39:10

do. The first time we do

39:12

group annotation, I will sort of be

39:15

like, hey, did you answer that question? I

39:17

don't really see that question on this chart

39:19

here. But as

39:21

we go on, we're actually preparing to do

39:23

it again next week. And

39:27

next week, I'm not going to

39:29

hand out the actual handout. It's

39:33

going to be posted on the wall, and

39:35

they can go check it if they want,

39:37

but it's going to be more about them

39:39

just sort of thinking through what they know

39:42

of the skill. And so

39:44

eventually, they're not even using those

39:46

guiding questions. They're just saying, okay,

39:48

I'm identifying right now. I'm analyzing

39:51

right now. And

39:54

I do think because I

39:56

introduce these skills sort of

39:58

chronologically, my identifying skills are really important. and

40:00

analyzers probably don't need the guiding questions at

40:02

this point, but my

40:04

evaluators and synthesizers are still working on it because

40:06

it's a newer, it's a newer

40:08

piece of content. So let's

40:11

just kind of walk people through the

40:13

step by step of the collaborative annotation

40:16

process. How does that look from sort

40:18

of beginning to end? Is this one

40:20

class period where this happens generally? I

40:24

usually do it over two 41

40:27

minute periods, sometimes

40:29

two and a half.

40:32

I could absolutely see this being kind

40:34

of a double period

40:37

like a block format,

40:39

or you know two or two and a

40:42

half single period, 41 minutes.

40:45

But it just depends on the structure of your

40:47

class. When I taught block periods I used to

40:49

do this in pretty much a single block. Okay,

40:53

so once you have your set

40:55

of four competencies or content

40:57

or skills that you want students to be

40:59

practicing and you've created your guiding questions, students

41:02

are grouped in groups of four and

41:05

you can choose to group them

41:08

mixed or you

41:10

know homogeneously or heterogeneously or however you

41:13

decide. And

41:15

then they are, we review the

41:17

protocol together and we review

41:19

a passage together. Okay. I

41:22

like to do this with the beginnings of

41:25

novels. So the

41:28

protocol that I shared, we were working with the

41:30

passage that was in the first chapter of the

41:32

novel that we were starting to read. So

41:35

I had had students read that

41:37

chapter for homework and so they were a

41:39

little bit familiar with the passage, but I don't

41:41

think that that's a necessary part of the protocol.

41:43

I think you could give it to them and

41:47

have them have never seen it before.

41:50

So we read, first we do a read aloud

41:52

of the passage. I'll usually read it aloud or

41:54

I'll invite, I'll ask for a student volunteer to

41:56

read the passage aloud and that's just a moment

41:58

so that we're all. hearing it together

42:01

and I invite students if you want

42:04

to make some preliminary notes based on

42:06

what you know of annotation you're welcome

42:08

to do so. About

42:10

how long of a passage are we talking about

42:12

by the way? The passage that I gave them

42:15

was three paragraphs. Okay, okay. Again,

42:18

this is 10th grade for seniors.

42:20

I might do something slightly longer.

42:22

For 9th graders I would absolutely

42:24

do no more than a paragraph.

42:28

It just depends on

42:31

the complexity of the text as well.

42:34

The piece that I was using was fiction

42:36

and so fiction can ebb and

42:38

flow and maybe some parts are complex and

42:40

some parts aren't. Okay. Yep.

42:44

So that first little introduction to the

42:46

task is about just understanding what we're

42:49

going to do and making

42:51

sure that we have sort of

42:53

clarifying questions on the passage collected.

42:55

So are there any words or phrases that

42:57

are getting in the way of our understanding?

43:01

A lot of times with fiction it'll

43:03

be clarifying who the narrator is, who

43:05

the character is, just things that are

43:07

very sort of surface level to make sure

43:09

that all students are at sort

43:12

of a baseline of understanding of the passage. Okay.

43:15

After that we begin our small

43:18

group work. The small

43:21

group work starts with them reading the

43:23

passage on their own and

43:26

thinking through at a

43:29

slightly higher level like, okay, what am

43:31

I seeing, what's going on? It's not

43:33

using the guiding questions yet but it's

43:35

just like a second read of the

43:37

passage. Once

43:39

they have done the second read of

43:42

their passage then I invite them up

43:44

to collect their materials. I usually give

43:46

a piece of chart paper, the passage.

43:49

If you have time you can take the passage for the

43:51

chart paper or you can help them do it depending on

43:53

how much prep you had that morning. And

43:56

then each student gets a different color

43:58

marker. I find it really helpful for

44:00

them to do the annotations with each in

44:03

a different color, so it's easy to see

44:05

who has done what. Then

44:08

they sort of sit down around the

44:10

passage and they assign roles. They

44:12

decide who is identifying, who is

44:15

analyzing, who is evaluating, and who

44:17

is synthesizing, or

44:19

whatever your set of four things are. And then

44:22

I usually prompt them like,

44:27

hey, just give the guiding questions one more

44:29

quick read just to make sure that you

44:31

understand. And I am circulating this whole time

44:34

kind of making sure that everyone

44:36

is understanding what they're

44:38

doing, knows where to look at

44:40

the guiding questions. The

44:43

resource that I provide, the set

44:46

of guiding questions, I usually take one to

44:48

each table so that they sort of have

44:50

them in the center. And

44:54

then they have about 15 minutes to

44:56

annotate the passage according to their

44:59

particular skill and using those guiding

45:01

questions. The

45:04

idea here is same for Andrea, that

45:06

they're really making their paper dirty, right?

45:09

They're really spending

45:11

time drawing arrows, writing

45:15

random ideas, putting stars, you know,

45:17

I want them to be as

45:20

much as possible, making their thinking visible on

45:22

that page. And,

45:24

you know, I like when,

45:27

you know, the hands run into each other, or

45:29

the arms run into each other, and they're finding

45:31

that they're wanting to annotate the same line or

45:33

the same sentence, because that's where a lot of

45:35

that, you know,

45:37

like the thinking isn't really in answering the

45:39

guiding questions as much as it is in

45:42

the process of, like you said, Andrea, kind

45:44

of moving those markers across the page and

45:46

finding that they're having moments where they're intersecting

45:49

or they're having to kind of figure

45:51

out, oh, is this identifier, is this analyzed,

45:53

and maybe it's both, and how can we

45:56

both annotate this moment? So

45:59

after about 15 minutes I have them

46:01

pause and just take a

46:03

step back and everybody looks at their annotations

46:06

and that's when as a group I asked them to

46:08

each sort of talk through what did

46:11

you notice what did you annotate for

46:13

and why what what new understandings

46:15

do you have about the task at this point and

46:18

this is each individual student sharing about what

46:21

they wrote kind of just summarizing what they're

46:23

yeah yeah in their small group they're having

46:25

a right in the small groups of four

46:28

and and because I have this

46:30

role of synthesizer I asked the

46:33

synthesizers to actually in

46:35

that time be adding annotations

46:37

based on what everyone is saying

46:40

so part of the synthesizer job

46:42

is to listen to their peers

46:44

and make some sort of larger

46:46

conclusions around okay what are

46:49

our group takeaways

46:52

now that we've all kind of had some

46:54

time to think about this this

46:56

brings up a question for me

46:58

too because that last piece in

47:00

particular I'm thinking some kids especially as 10th graders

47:03

might be like I don't really know what to

47:05

write as do you model that

47:07

at any point for them to show them the

47:09

kinds of things that they could be writing or

47:11

their sentence stems or anything that could sort of

47:13

help them with that there

47:16

I have the guiding questions

47:19

so in the guiding questions I asked them

47:21

what are some commonalities between what all peers

47:23

shared and this is actually

47:26

something that we do a lot in my class where

47:28

we look for we look for

47:30

commonalities and I

47:32

usually started in the very beginning of

47:35

the year in really small ways so

47:37

I have I often use the new

47:39

visions is a nonprofit organization that's related

47:41

to the Department of Education in New

47:44

York City and they have a lot

47:46

of really good resources and one of

47:48

them is they have micro routines that

47:50

are these five to six

47:53

minute thinking strategies for students I

47:57

use a lot of those micro routines it's it'll

47:59

be like turn and talk and tell,

48:01

my favorite one is called best thoughts.

48:03

So it's like, you tell your partner

48:06

what you're thinking and then

48:08

your partner says back to you, it sounds like

48:10

what you're thinking is. And

48:12

then they switch it and then they have

48:14

a discussion. What was our best thought from

48:17

those two and why? And then we share

48:19

it out. So we practice this a lot

48:21

in very kind of smaller ways so

48:23

that when we get to this sense of

48:26

size moment, it's they

48:28

they're able to do it.

48:30

Okay. Regularly. Yeah. I

48:32

actually don't find, I have never

48:35

found the struggle to be

48:37

so much with what are the commonalities

48:39

between what our peers should. They do

48:41

struggle. I I'm working right now in

48:44

the evaluate piece around thinking

48:46

about significance and impact. That

48:50

is a, that is a hard thing

48:52

to think about and talk about. And

48:54

we're, we're working through it a lot now.

48:56

But what I noticed is when they're, when they're

48:58

talking about the meaning, a lot of

49:01

them are able to hear from what

49:03

other people say, what the impact is

49:05

on them. So I'll

49:07

say like, okay, what does your partner

49:09

say that relates to the impact

49:12

on them of this passage? And they'll be like,

49:14

oh, well, they really connected to it because of

49:16

X, Y, Z language, or it

49:19

made them feel one particular way. And

49:22

then I'll ask them to talk about it for them and

49:24

they can't. So

49:27

it's interesting actually having

49:29

this collaboration. It's, it's

49:31

much easier to hear what other people think

49:33

than to sort of come up with your

49:35

own ideas, I think sometimes. So

49:37

it's kind of another beauty of

49:39

the collaboration aspect of this is, is

49:42

they're able to see what other people are

49:44

doing. Okay. Okay. So

49:47

they, they, they're in their small groups. They're

49:50

kind of talking now about what the annotations

49:52

are. The synthesizers are adding a little bit

49:54

more synthesizing annotations. And then what

49:56

happens next? So

49:58

after that, they are. are moving

50:00

their ideas into the whole group. So

50:03

after that we do a gallery walk. I have them

50:05

take their little posters, we put them on the wall,

50:08

and I

50:10

have transparent Post-its and my kids are

50:12

obsessed with transparent Post-its. So they do

50:14

this on transparent Post-its, but you could

50:16

do it right on the Post-its so you

50:18

don't need Post-its. But the kids all take

50:21

a set of Post-its and they walk around and they look

50:23

at each other's chart papers. And

50:26

they're basically spending time

50:28

responding to what the

50:30

other groups noted in the same passage.

50:34

I provide a set of sentence starters

50:36

for this because what I noticed is

50:38

it was a lot of like, yeah,

50:41

agreed, good job. Because

50:43

they like to hype each other up, which I'm

50:45

not mad at, but I wanted it to be

50:47

a little bit more of a meaningful moment. So

50:50

I asked them to write things like, this makes

50:52

me think about, I can

50:54

connect this to, additionally this

50:56

could mean or I wonder why. And

51:00

so I have those sentence starters up

51:02

on the board. Sometimes

51:04

they use them, sometimes they don't, but

51:06

it helps them to provide some more

51:08

meaningful insight to each other other than

51:10

just agreeing and disagreeing. Okay. And

51:14

so after that round where

51:16

we're on the chart paper and the

51:18

whole group is sort of marking up

51:21

everyone's charts, we all return to

51:23

our smaller

51:25

group and we take a look and we say,

51:27

all right, what have we done here? And

51:30

what have we done at a more

51:34

complex level than others? So

51:36

something that will often happen is the

51:38

kids will notice that they identified a

51:40

lot of stuff and they made a

51:43

lot of connections between what they identified,

51:45

but maybe they didn't do as much

51:47

evaluating or asking questions. So

51:50

then that's that sort of, I always ask them to

51:52

have a metacognitive moment. For

51:55

me, I will then

51:57

ask them to decide how they wanna be assessed on

51:59

those posters. But I don't know

52:01

that that's a really important part of the protocol.

52:03

I think you could have students write a reflection

52:05

and set a goal for next time about what

52:07

they want to do better. Or

52:10

you could just

52:13

use it as a practice round and

52:15

say next time I will be assessing

52:17

on XYZ. So

52:19

there's a lot of flexibility in

52:22

the assessment part. I think you could

52:24

also have students grade each other's

52:26

work. That's another space where you could

52:28

have them talking to each other about

52:30

their work. So

52:33

there's a lot of open moments after the

52:35

gallery walk for what you want to do

52:37

with the group annotation.

52:39

Yeah. And I guess that

52:42

anybody thinking about this, you know, an important

52:44

piece is just thinking about what is your

52:46

goal for doing this in the first place.

52:48

You know, is it to get students to

52:50

comprehend text better, to learn how to use

52:53

annotation as a personal, personally enriching skill. And

52:56

so maybe thinking about that, you know,

52:58

working backwards from there, what do we want students

53:00

to ultimately be doing and how do we get

53:02

them there. And this probably will be already getting

53:04

there, just the activity alone. So

53:08

I guess my I've got a couple of

53:10

questions that I've been jotting down because I

53:12

remember that, Andrea, you had mentioned this in

53:14

the in the piece that some

53:17

students actually ultimately will not need

53:19

any written annotation. Talk to me

53:21

a little bit about that. Right.

53:24

So at some point in the process,

53:26

I actually asked my students to write

53:28

down what they felt

53:31

about annotation and they thought it was useful for them.

53:33

So I got, you know, I have 20 students in

53:36

my class right now. I got 20 different answers. Some

53:39

students were honest. I think it was about two,

53:41

maybe three kids. They said, you know, I don't

53:43

really feel like it does anything for me. I

53:46

can understand the text without it. Most

53:49

of them said some degree of like, this

53:51

is really helpful. And some were really enthusiastic

53:54

about it. But for the kids that didn't

53:56

find it useful, you have to

53:58

think about them as individuals. they

54:01

might not be finding it useful. Is

54:03

it because they're able to fluidly read

54:05

and comprehend the text already and they

54:07

don't need this support because

54:11

maybe the text is at a

54:13

level that doesn't challenge them. I

54:15

do have a kid that's

54:17

reading on a fifth grade reading level and he was

54:19

one of the kids who's like, I don't need it.

54:21

Now if I gave him a sixth grade or seventh

54:23

grade level text he might then need to annotate. You

54:25

know what I mean? So he's processing it

54:29

on his own because it's, you know, he can

54:31

comprehend. Other kids

54:34

they just don't like to write and

54:36

so now you're asking them to read and you're

54:38

also asking them to write at the same time.

54:40

Well that's now double work. I understand that

54:43

may be the rationale. However,

54:45

for those kids,

54:49

I'm still gonna push you to do something like,

54:51

you know, because I can

54:53

see that from your responses whether you're

54:55

talking about the text or answering questions

54:57

or anything like that, there's still levels

55:00

that you haven't gotten to and

55:02

I'm gonna work with you to find ways to

55:05

annotate that don't create stress

55:08

or additional burden but still will help you.

55:10

So that's the great thing about the response

55:12

of annotation. Not everybody has to be writing

55:15

notes in the margins. Not everybody has to

55:17

be doing these elaborate moves but there are

55:19

ways that you can annotate and keep the

55:21

process streamlined depending on that individual person's needs.

55:24

So I really look at each kid and

55:26

what works for them as individuals and try

55:28

to push them to what's gonna work for

55:30

them. Irene, what about you?

55:33

When it comes down to, you know,

55:35

how often are you doing this kind

55:37

of group annotation compared to how often

55:39

students are reading and maybe doing some

55:41

stuff independently? Is this getting

55:43

transferred over to their individual

55:46

reading time or where's the flexibility

55:48

there? I guess just comment on the same

55:50

thing we talked about with Andrea. Yeah,

55:53

you know, in 10th grade, as I

55:55

mentioned, we're kind of moving them from

55:58

independent to more sorry from dependent. to

56:00

more independent learners. And

56:03

so when they're in

56:05

their sort of individual reading places,

56:08

I will usually be

56:10

reminding them of the skills. And I'll

56:12

say, this last time when we read

56:14

this novel, I had them choosing, do

56:16

you want to be reading for identifying?

56:18

Do you want to be reading for

56:21

analyzing? And as you're reading,

56:23

just keep those skills in mind. And

56:26

I'll sometimes tell them, my

56:28

students love, they're like, how many

56:30

notes? How many post-its? I

56:33

personally don't care, but I think it

56:35

sometimes helps them. So I'll be like,

56:37

for this passage, maybe five

56:40

to seven post-its related to

56:42

these concepts. But

56:44

that is generally, at this

56:46

point in the year for my 10th graders, much more

56:48

of a loose practice. I

56:50

do have students like Andrea who don't

56:54

like to annotate for a variety of

56:56

reasons. And the same thing. Some

56:58

of them don't like to annotate because they hate

57:00

reading and they hate writing, or they think they

57:02

hate reading and hate writing. And

57:05

I have other students who it really just is

57:08

not how they think. And

57:10

I think students, particularly students who are

57:13

accelerated learners, sometimes their brains do

57:15

this thing where they skip ahead

57:17

to the most complex level of

57:19

thinking, but they skip the

57:21

sort of more rudimentary elements that

57:23

lead up to that thinking. So

57:26

something that I'm working on with my

57:29

students is they draw these really big

57:31

conclusions, but they're kind of overly

57:33

vague and broad because they haven't

57:35

stopped at identify. They

57:37

went straight to synthesize, but they didn't

57:40

stop at identify. So I'll be like,

57:42

OK, so you think this relates to

57:44

this huge universal concept, but why? What

57:47

got you to that space?

57:50

So for that kid, I might

57:52

be saying, hey, you're identifying today.

57:54

You need to go back, and

57:56

you need to spend some reading

57:58

time identifying. the elements that lead

58:01

to that big idea, like slow that

58:03

big brain down. Right.

58:05

Because sometimes kids who are

58:08

reading at advanced levels, they need to be

58:10

taught, be explicitly taught to pull back

58:12

and slow down. Yeah. Conversely,

58:15

yeah, conversely, students who

58:17

are always reading at the

58:19

more sort of literal level

58:21

are going to need help

58:24

going from literal to more metaphorical

58:26

or to the drawing conclusion space.

58:28

So for those kids, I'll be

58:31

saying things like, hey, why

58:33

don't you practice a little bit of analysis

58:35

today, find the main idea and

58:37

then tell me which of these pieces connect

58:40

to that main idea? Or, you know, in

58:42

high school, we tend to do more themes

58:44

than main ideas. But, but

58:47

don't ask the teachers to define it because you're going to get

58:49

it. I

58:51

learned that lesson. Yes. Yes. But

58:55

yeah, so the at

58:57

the individual level for me at this point in the

58:59

year, it's a much more sort of it's a process

59:01

that I use to help push students to do things

59:04

that they're not doing naturally. And

59:06

then the place where I really see the

59:08

collaborative process coming into its own, like I

59:11

said, is in the discussion level. So

59:13

at the end of every unit, we have a Socratic

59:15

seminar. And after we do,

59:17

we start doing the group annotation, there's

59:19

a little bit more of a the

59:23

baseline comes much higher in terms of what

59:25

we're discussing and why. So in the beginning

59:27

of the year in my Socratic seminars, it's

59:29

a lot of like on page 57,

59:32

they said this and that made me think that. But

59:35

at this point in the year, we're

59:38

really getting into students asking their own

59:40

questions because they have practiced evaluating and

59:42

writing probing questions. And so they're asking

59:45

their own probing questions. They're evaluating whether

59:47

those are relevant questions and they're

59:49

doing that all sort of together and

59:51

they can't do that. Well,

59:53

they could do it. But the way that

59:56

I get them there is through this group

59:58

collaboration process. Yeah. I

1:00:00

was thinking about that when you were talking about

1:00:02

how some kids naturally lean more toward the identify

1:00:04

level of reading and some jump way past that

1:00:06

and skip the details and such

1:00:09

a valuable way to teach them

1:00:11

other ways of thinking is exposing

1:00:13

them to other thinkers in

1:00:16

their peer group and that's just a

1:00:18

really nice natural organic way of having

1:00:20

them learn those other thinking skills. Anything

1:00:23

else that either one of you would like to add

1:00:26

before we wrap up

1:00:28

and send people off to read your post?

1:00:31

There's so many similarities between what Irene is

1:00:33

doing in 10th grade and what I'm doing

1:00:35

in 3rd grade that is kind of mind-blowing.

1:00:37

It's just on a different level.

1:00:40

I think the main takeaway is

1:00:42

that we are teaching them to

1:00:45

interact with the text rather than

1:00:48

just reflect and absorb it and reflect

1:00:50

it back which is

1:00:52

what a lot of maybe

1:00:55

curriculums or things might ask

1:00:57

them to do is like very

1:01:01

surface level. This has to be meaningful.

1:01:05

They're making meaning of the text. To

1:01:07

do this, it takes a lot, a lot,

1:01:10

a lot of modeling and a lot, a

1:01:12

lot, a lot of practice. So

1:01:14

I'm not going to just come here and say, oh

1:01:17

this is easy in five

1:01:19

to seven steps. You can

1:01:21

have your students transform into

1:01:23

these active

1:01:26

readers. It's not that simple but what

1:01:28

I will say is if you are

1:01:30

willing to invest the time and

1:01:32

the energy into it that you

1:01:35

absolutely see the

1:01:38

impact. I

1:01:40

can say just from

1:01:42

working with eight-year-olds. I'm

1:01:45

not working with high school so I'm working with eight-year-olds

1:01:47

and what they're able to pull from

1:01:49

their text and what they're able to

1:01:52

bring to do discussion and as Irene

1:01:54

said build upon each other's thinking, look

1:01:56

at each other's work, learn from each

1:01:58

other. It's really,

1:02:02

it's inspiring and I

1:02:04

hope that they will take it into,

1:02:06

you know, future years once they

1:02:08

have the foundation here. Oh,

1:02:11

I bet they, I bet they absolutely were. And

1:02:13

one of the things that we forgot to actually

1:02:15

mention as a part of your process was

1:02:17

that at the end, once they have,

1:02:20

they've watched your modeling, they've attempted it

1:02:22

on their own, you're actually having them

1:02:24

look at each other's annotations

1:02:26

and compare with each other. There

1:02:29

is, there is a collaborative element

1:02:31

there. This is not just done

1:02:33

in these individual silos. They're also

1:02:35

getting exposure to their peers annotations

1:02:37

and ways of thinking. Yeah,

1:02:39

100%. I mean, just yesterday, they

1:02:41

all annotated something and we brought them to the rug.

1:02:43

I brought them to the rug and I put it

1:02:45

under the projector and we just went through a bunch

1:02:48

of kids work and what are you noticing? And

1:02:51

then we had the discussion about what can you do when

1:02:54

you go back as you continue annotating something

1:02:56

that you saw your peers do. So they

1:02:58

were able to immediately put it into practice

1:03:00

based on what they had just seen someone

1:03:03

else do. And we do that all the

1:03:05

time. I love that.

1:03:07

And that requires zero curriculum, zero.

1:03:09

You've got the resources right there in the room,

1:03:12

just a good text in a room full of

1:03:14

thinkers. And I love

1:03:16

that. Irene, you said you had a couple of

1:03:18

things to add to. Yeah. And

1:03:21

I also just want to say that what Andrea just

1:03:23

described is also culture building, right? How

1:03:25

do you create a culture of people

1:03:27

who are thinking, who are examining, who

1:03:30

are always curious? And

1:03:32

that's something that is the

1:03:35

hidden curriculum, right? How are we

1:03:37

creating a culture in our

1:03:39

classroom that is rigor but

1:03:41

also individualized? And

1:03:45

how can we individualize and make

1:03:47

the learning human but also still

1:03:49

make it critical? And

1:03:52

that's not an easy thing to do. And Andrea is

1:03:54

really excellent at that. And

1:03:56

I think another piece of it is, and Andrea

1:03:59

has said this before. or is the

1:04:02

fact that it's a practice, not a strategy. This

1:04:04

is something that we do as learners

1:04:08

and it's a way of learning and

1:04:10

we can learn this way no matter

1:04:12

what the text, no matter what the

1:04:14

task, right? This is about making visible

1:04:16

our own thinking and learning and

1:04:19

practicing our own thinking and learning

1:04:21

as a way to deepen, to

1:04:23

extend, to challenge. And so it's

1:04:26

definitely something that I think you have to do more

1:04:28

than once. This is not a one-off thing. And

1:04:32

I think if we're wanting

1:04:35

to make annotation meaningful, it

1:04:38

has to be that responsive type

1:04:41

of annotation. So how

1:04:43

is this linked to what you

1:04:46

are valuing, what you

1:04:48

are teaching, what you

1:04:50

are wanting to revise, practice,

1:04:54

reassess? And

1:04:56

for me personally, I also link it to

1:04:58

assessment. Go away. Thank

1:05:00

you both so much. This post that

1:05:02

you all have put together is gonna

1:05:04

be even more valuable than this conversation in

1:05:07

terms of people being able to take it away

1:05:09

and apply it to their own rooms. Thank you

1:05:11

so, so much for sharing your

1:05:13

practices with me. Thank you. Thank you

1:05:15

so much. I appreciate it. To

1:05:18

get a written version of Andrea's

1:05:20

and Irene's step-by-step plans, see pictures

1:05:22

of their methods in action with

1:05:25

students and grab a copy of

1:05:27

Andrea's annotation template. Visit cultofetagogy.com, click

1:05:29

podcast and choose episode 227. To

1:05:33

get a bi-monthly email from me about

1:05:35

my newest blog posts, podcast episodes, courses

1:05:38

and products, sign up for

1:05:40

my mailing list at cultofetagogy.com/ subscribe.

1:05:43

Thanks so much for listening and have a great day.