Text Annotation Strategies for any text

Teaching students to annotate texts independently can be tricky. Spotting alliteration and repetition is easy. But can students quickly identify elements that are contradictory or surprising to readers?

Here are 18 annotation activities that can be used at Middle or High School level to annotate anything from poetry to non-fiction.
Included:
# 18 Annotation Tags ready to be printed, laminated, punched and tagged together.
# 18 Table plates ready to be printed (card stock is best), folded and placed on tables for use.
# 5 Worksheets

Using this in the classroom:
# Before the lesson: print the annotation tags up (in sets and laminate) and allow students to use them independently or in pairs.
# Before the lesson: print the table plates on card stock and use for group or pair work.
# In lesson: use the tags or table plates to explicitly teach younger students the skill of text annotation. Before tackling inference and deduction, use these different strategies to annotate extracts, short stories, and poems to ensure your students have secured comprehension and begun to create a personal response.
# In lesson: give the tags or table plates to older students as a reminder of the different questions they could ask as they read texts. Students may need explicit teaching of the skills involved.

Different ways to use them:
# Tags: Print, laminate, tag together and have available for every student or on every table.
# Tags or table plates: Print, laminate and use as individual task cards to that individuals or pairs are responsible for just one strategy.
# Tags or table plates: Print, laminate, and group the cards together for use at stations.
# Use the table plates for individual, pair, or group work!