Authentic Teacher-Annotated Texts

"You writin' in the book really helped me a lot!"

One of my approximately 16-year-old Black male students said this to me today as we were beginning class. He borrowed a book from our class library last week. Apparently, it was a book in which I annotated quite frequently. I didn't realize that I placed my annotated edition out for them to borrow. When Sean (pseudonym) said this to me, however, he gave me insight into how best he and others may learn.

As English teachers, we show our students how to annotate including how to organize their annotations. Of course, we provide examples on the screen or may even distribute examples we've prepared. But this wasn't that. I wrote in the book for my own personal reasons.

Actual personal annotations from The Soloist by Steve Lopez

Sean got me to thinking. Annotations on a cold read where a student is reading a text independently and not in preparation for our traditional interrogation of the text? I think he may have given me, because I know you've already been illuminated, some insight into literary practices that could be helpful for struggling teenage readers.

1. Create authentic teacher-annotated versions of short texts (i.e. newspaper clippings or poems) in addition to making non-annotated versions available. Note: this would NOT be for the purpose of showing students how to annotate text, per se, as this was not my purpose in the example above.

2.  Make teacher-annotated books available in the class libraries and indicate that they are annotated. I'm going to have to figure that one out because I love my books and the notes I've taken in them. {insert Black thinking emoji and a hmmmmm thought cloud...no lightbulbs yet}

3.  Create an atmosphere where students, and in this case a Black male student, feel comfortable:
a--borrowing the books that are for them, as books, in my opinion, should be 'please touch and take'
     Note: He saw, he asked, he took...no problem
b--letting you know that they are reading and enjoying the book, and
     Note: He approached me, unsolicited
c--letting you know how they are thriving with the book
     Note: He approached me, unsolicited

Just how do you a, b, and c?
1.  Allow them to borrow the books. If you don't want to lend them, don't display them.
2.  Allow them to approach you. Let's stop with the feigned, "I feel threatened" stuff. Sean wants to tell you about the book he's reading.
3.  If you really care about them, they'll know it and neither a, b, nor c, will be an issue. If you don't care about them, they'll know that too. Thing is, students, especially today, have this funny little way of showing you how they feel about you. Just sayin...

I'm not perfect, I'm striving. I'm also still learning everyday that teaching is not a simple algorithm!