Annotation:
Close Reading with a Pencil
Set Your Intention
• To read you must have a purpose:
to understand, remember, or enjoy
• Read actively to make meaning
• Decide where you are most comfortable
• Free the space and your mind from distractions
How to read to remember!
• Read with a pen or pencil in hand
• Use shorthand marks in the margins
• Underline key ideas and images
• Note where you have questions
• Circle vocabulary words
Reading a Short Story
• Underline the details that show scenes
• Note important information to convey a
character’s personality
• Put POV or point of view in the column to note
where the narrator is present
What to do as you read?
• Express any emotion that you feel like pleasure,
surprise, anger, confusion
• Recall personal associations with actions or
conversations in the story
• Create headings to identify different scenes
• Underline or highlight any passage that is
significant
Reading “The Necklace”
• Written by Guy de
Maupassant in 1884
• Set in France
• Universal themes of
desire, class, pride &
identity
• Read the story through
quickly
Click the Image Below to View the Annotation
The End
Produced by Carol Hamilton
Summer Institute, 2004