Deadline
Depends on which article you sign up for. Your group’s annotations are due by the beginning of the class preceding the date for which the reading is assigned. For example, if the reading is assigned for Tuesday, your group should complete its annotations by the preceding Thursday.
Grading
Your group will receive full credit for the assignment (an A) if you fulfill each of the criteria described below.
Description
Working with a small group, you’ll annotate one of our course readings to enrich and contextualize it for your classmates.
Your group should aim for about 40 annotations. Tag each of these annotations with one or more of the following options: question, context, guidance, reaction, comment. (Each annotation can have multiple tags, but only one tag counts toward the sum of each type of annotation.) Each group member should contribute a roughly equal number of annotations, and the “context” and “comment” annotations should reflect the group’s consensus, not just one person’s ideas.
You can type your annotations, or you can record a video of your comments and include them that way (you’ll have to upload the video to YouTube first).
Context (one required): Annotate the title of the article to explain how the reading relates to the other readings and discussions we’ve encountered in class. How does it build on other readings? Or does it argue something that runs counter to other readings we’ve discussed? Another way to phrase this is: why do you think I assigned this article? You might also include tips for your fellow students on how to read the article: for example, important concepts they should look for, or details that don’t matter as much.
Guidance (at least five required): Use an annotation to define a word in the context in which it’s being used, paraphrase a complicated sentence or paragraph, identify the main argument, point students to particularly critical passages, or give students background information that will help them understand what they’re reading.
Question (at least five required): A question can be something you don’t understand, or it can be something you think would be interesting to discuss in class. For example, does the reading suggest implications that you think are worth talking about? Does the reading seem to contradict itself? Does the reading conflict with something else we’ve read?
Reaction (at least five required): Does something bother you? Do you really like something? Does a passage change your understanding of something? Use a “reaction” annotation to explain why.
Comment (one required): Describe what your group thinks is useful about the reading. What major questions are you left with? If you have an objection to something in the reading, explain what it is. How has the reading changed your understanding of the phenomenon it’s describing? Do members of your group disagree with each other about something in the reading? Explain what that is.
Your annotations should:
- meet the requirements above
- reflect substantive engagement with the reading, not surface-level (“that’s cool”) reactions or dictionary definitions of terms
- identify the major arguments in the reading
- raise real questions that we can discuss in class