Learning through Annotation

Funded Mar 9, 2016

Dear Donor,

Thank you so much for your generous donation to my classroom. The Post - It notes you supplied made a huge impact on my students' ability to complete close readings. For each reading, I would assign a specific Post-It color to a specific thing to look for in the reading. For instance, examples of the character's inner conflict, how the author used figurative language to achieve characterization or simply parts of the story that the student connected to. Over the course of the spring semester, we used the Post-It notes with each novel we read, and with each reading the students became more and more comfortable with the process and their reading became much more focused. This semester, I have followed my students into the 10th grade and they have already asked, "Miss, are we going to use the Post-Its again?" I was able to save enough from your gift, so that at the start of this year, they would have them available to use. I truly believe this donation has helped my students become better, more focused readers, which has thus enabled them to develop the skill of easily locating evidence from the text to support assertions they are making in both their writing and class discussions. This skill is vital as their culminating graduation paper will be a 15-page paper of literary analysis, which is then presented and defended to a panel of teachers, parents and fellow students. This project will require a great amount of research and evidence gathering, so I am thrilled I was able to help them develop this skill early in their high school career.

Thank you again so much for your gift to my students.”

With gratitude,

Ms. C.