MODULE 6

ANNOTATING

Previewing is valuable because it prepares you to read closely and critically, but the
most fundamental of all critical reading strategies is annotating. As you will see, the
subsequent critical reading strategies all grow out of and extend annotating. This
process is essential to critical reading because it focuses your attention on the language
of the text. As you read, annotate directly on the page, underlining key words, phrases,
or sentences and writing comments or questions in the margins. You can also bracket
important sections of the text, connect ideas with lines or arrows, and number related
points in sequence. If writing on the text itself is impossible or undesirable to you
personally, you can still write notes about the reading on a separate piece of paper.
Most readers annotate in layers, adding further annotations on second and third
readings. Annotations can be light or heavy, depending on the readers purpose and the
difficulty of the material. Reading a textbook to prepare for an exam, for example, you
might limit yourself to underlining (or highlighting with a colored marker) main ideas
and defining new words in the margin. Analyzing a poem or story as a subject for an
essay, on the other hand, you would almost certainly annotate more heavily, layering
annotations from several readings. You may want to annotate some of the essays in this
book heavily in order to analyze the strategies and processes each writer uses as well as
to explore ideas and your reactions to them.
Read the excerpt first without looking at the annotations, and then reread slowly,
paying attention to them. Remember that they were accumulated during several
readings.

An Annotated Reading:
from Letter from Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King, Jr.

1. White moderates . . . My Christian and Jewish brothers . . . I must confess

shallow understanding that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed
and lukewarm with the white moderate. I have almost reached the
acceptance a barrier regrettable conclusion that the Negros [great stumbling block
to racial in his stride toward freedom] is not the White Citizens
justice. Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate,
WCC? who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a
KKK: white sheets, negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive
nooses, burning peace which is the absence of justice; who constantly says: I
crossesfounded agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with
after Civil War white your methods of direct action; who paternalistically believes
supremacy by terror he can set the timetable for another mans freedom; who
lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly

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forecasts his main advises the Negro to wait for a more convenient season.
arguments here Shallow understanding from people of good will is more
frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill
will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than
outright rejection
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand
that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice
and that when they fail in this purpose they become the
[dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social
progress.] I had hoped that the white moderate would
understand that the present tension in the South is a
not sure l agree necessary phase of the transition from an [obnoxious negative
peace,] in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust
plight, to a [substantive and positive peace.] in which all men
will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.
Law and order Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not
the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the
hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the
open, where it can be give seen and dealt. [Like a boil that can
never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened
2. Tension is necessary with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light,
for progress toward injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure
freedom. creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of
national opinion before it can be cured.]

Repetition and shorter

sentences give
emphasis.

Will light of human

conscience and air of
national opinion
always produce
justice?

As you can see, the annotations on this excerpt are quite diverse. Questions,
definitions, reactions, and an outline, attending both to Kings ideas and to his

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argumentative strategies and style, appear in the margin. Within the text itself, key
words, phrases, and sentences are underlined, circled, bracketed, and boxed.
Layered annotations like these produce a comprehensive record of a critical reading,
a record you can use in class discussion or for your own writing. Such annotations can
give you confidence that you understand what a writer is saying and how it is being said.
By persisting with demanding, time-consuming annotation and rereadings, you will
gradually master the critical reading strategies and approach any difficult text
confidently.
In the following analysis of the annotations, we comment separately on the marginal
questions, definitions and reactions. In this discussion, the numbers in parentheses
indicate the paragraph number of the annotated text

Questions

Questions are the most notable aspect of the annotations: the more than twenty
questions in the margins help focus the reading, identify needed information and
definitions, and express confusion. These questions emerged gradually through several
readings.
All these questions characterize the work of an inquiring, critical reader, one who is
willing to admit what he or she does not know and unwilling to accept passively a
revered Americans argument. This questioning stance can lead to useful reflection
and to questions that may later suggest topics for writing.

Definitions

On our first reading, imagining ourselves to be college freshmen, we encountered

several unfamiliar words and names: since none of them seemed essential to a general
understanding of the reading, we did not stop to look them up.

Reactions

The annotations on this excerpt react to both ideas and style. Some annotations
record agreement or disagreement, contrast, etc.

EXERCISE

Read the article below at least two or three times. Annotate as you read in order to
understand the reading more fully.

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 We Should Cherish Our Childrens Freedom to Think
Kie Ho
Kie Ho, who grew up in Indonesia and is now a Southern California business
executive, argues in the following article that the educational system in the United
States is the best in the world because it teaches students to think and to experiment
with ideas. The author criticizes educational systems that rely solely on memorization
and rote learning, because those methods stifle creative impulses. As you read the article,
compare or contrast the educational system of your country with that of the United
States.
Americans who remember the good old days are not alone in complaining
about the educational system in this country. Immigrants, too, complain, and with more
up-to-date comparisons. Lately I have heard a Polish refugee express dismay that his
daughters high school has not taught her the difference between Belgrade and Prague.
A German friend was furious when he learned that the mathematics test given to his
son on his first day as a freshman included multiplication and division. A Lebanese
boasts that the average high-school graduate in his homeland can speak fluently in
Arabic, French and English. Japanese businessmen in Los Angeles send their children to
private schools staffed by teachers imported from Japan to learn mathematics at
Japanese levels, generally considered at least a year more advanced than the level here.
But I wonder: If American education is so tragically inferior, why is it that this is
still the country of innovation?
I think I found the answer on an excursion to the Laguna Beach Museum of Art,
where the work of schoolchildren was on exhibit. Equipped only with colorful yarns, foil
paper, felt pens and crayons, they had transformed simple paper lunch bags into,
among other things, a waterfall with flying fish, Broom Hilda the witch and a house with
a woman in a skimpy bikini hiding behind a swinging door. Their public school had
provided these children with opportunities and direction to fulfill their creativity,
something that people tend to dismiss or take for granted.
When I was 12 in Indonesia, where education followed the Dutch system, I had
to memorize the names of all the worlds major cities, from Kabul to Karachi. At the
same age, my son, who was brought up a Californian, thought that Buenos Aires was
Spanish for good fooda plate of tacos and burritos, perhaps. However, unlike his
counterparts in Asia and Europe, my son had studied creative geography. When he was
only 6, he drew a map of the route that he traveled to get to school, including the
streets and their names, the buildings and traffic signs and the houses that he passed.
Disgruntled American parents forget that in this country their children are able
to experiment freely with ideas; without this they will not really be able to think or to
believe in themselves.
In my high school years, we were models of dedication and obedience; we sat to
listen, to answer only when asked, and to give the only correct answer. Even when
studying word forms, there were no alternatives. In similes, pretty lips were always as
red as sliced pomegranates, and beautiful eyebrows were always like a parade of black
clouds. Like children in many other countries in the world, I simply did not have a
chance to choose, to make decisions. My son, on the contrary, told me that he got a

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good laughand an Afrom his teacher for concocting the man was as nervous as
Richard Pryor at a Ku Klux Klan convention.
Theres no doubt that American education does not meet high standards in such
basic skills as mathematics and language. And we realize that our youngsters are
ignorant of Latin, put Mussolini in the same category as Dostoevski, cannot recite the
Periodic Table by heart. Would we, however, prefer to stuff the developing little heads
of our children with hundreds of geometry problems, the names of rivers in Brazil and
50 lines from The Canterbury Tales? Do we really want to retard their impulses,
frustrate their opportunities for self-expression?
When I was 18, I had to memorize Hamlets To be or not to be soliloquy
flawlessly. In his English class, my son was assigned to write a love letter to Juliet, either
in Shakespearean jargon or in modern lingo. (He picked the latter; his Romeo would
take Juliet to an arcade for a game of Donkey Kong.)
Where else but in America can a history student take the role of Lyndon Johnson
in an open debate against another student playing Ho Chi Minh? It is unthinkable that a
youngster in Japan would dare to do the same regarding the role of Hirohito in World
War II.
Critics of American education cannot grasp one thing, something that they dont
truly understand because they are never deprived of it: freedom. This most important
measurement has been omitted in the studies of the quality of education in this century,
the only one, I think, that extends even to children the license to freely speak, write and
be creative. Our public education certainly is not perfect, but it is a great deal better
than any other.