Are you a community college student who wants to improve your reading skills? If yes, this article is for you!
Becoming a skillful reader takes your critical thinking skills to the next level, improves your reading comprehension, and positions you to perform well in all your courses.
Learning how to annotate is one key way to become a skillful reader. The purpose of annotating is to engage you, the reader, more with the text so that you’ll both understand it better as you read and remember it more clearly later. When you return to an annotated text later, you’ll be able to recall at least the basic gist of the text just from your annotations, without rereading. There are two aspects to annotation – summarizing and responding. In summarizing, you stick solely to understanding and paraphrasing what the author has said, and in responding, you raise questions about the text and express your own opinions and reactions.
To annotate your text, you may or may not choose to pre-read it. Pre-reading could involve reading the title of the text to infer context clues about what the entire text could be about as well as skimming through it to get a quick idea of its overall message. Skimming a text may consist of reading subheads, reading the first and last paragraphs, and sampling a few paragraphs in between to get a sense of how the argument is structured.
How to Annotate a Text
In this article, I show you how to annotate a text by using an excerpt from my memoir, Destined: A Story of Resilience and Beating the Odds. The excerpt comes from the chapter in which I reflect on my experiences as a student in community college and describes how I enrolled in a public speaking class to face my fear of speaking in front of a group of people.
It was in the spring of 2014 when I took a class at CCP [Community College of Philadelphia] that made my entire body tremble and my mind race: public speaking. I had the choice of taking a creative writing course or public speaking. I decided to take public speaking because that’s the class that terrified me, and I wanted to overcome that fear. In the Senegalese culture in which I grew up, looking directly in people’s eyes, especially adults, was considered a sign of disrespect. In American culture, looking away or looking down when talking to people is a sign of not being trustworthy and confident. I wanted to get comfortable speaking in front of people while making eye contact with them as much as possible.
The first step in annotating is to summarize the main point of the paragraph. Remember to keep your annotations concise to fit into the margins as well as to cue your memory when you return to them later. Use a pencil while annotating to allow you to erase and make edits to your notes as necessary. Using your own words, you could summarize this paragraph as: “To get over her fear of public speaking, the author signs up for a course.
Second, engage in a discussion with the author in which you connect what she has told you with your own experience. You could then comment in the margin as if engaging in a conversation with the author. “I’m also terrified of public speaking, so I can’t wait to read more.”
Third, you could spot and work on vocabulary words that you either don’t understand or don’t fully understand. For example, you could underline the word trustworthy if you didn’t fully understand its meaning, look it up in an online dictionary, such as Merriam-Webster, and write its meaning in the margin of the text. “Trustworthy: worthy of confidence; dependable.”
Then you could create a sentence of your own that uses the word trustworthy to help you deepen your understanding of the word. “My husband is trustworthy because he delivers on his promises.” You could write this new sentence either in the margin of the text or in a separate notebook, where you would compile vocabulary words from your readings for future reference.
In that course, I wrote and delivered six speeches based on my own experience, research, and the principles of effective public speaking that we learned in class. Students, about twenty of us, were graded in real time as we delivered our speeches; we got written feedback from our peers and the instructor, focusing on content as well as vocal and nonverbal deliveries. During our first session, the professor said, “In this class, you will sink or swim.”
To annotate this second paragraph, you would again begin by summarizing it in one sentence: “The author delivered six speeches in front of her peers and professor and was graded as she spoke.” Continuing your conversation with the author, you would then pose a question: “How did you prepare?” Because you posed this question, you would be intentionally looking for its response as you continue to read the passage, which would make you more engaged with your reading.
My speeches covered key life lessons from Marian Wright Edelman, an activist for civil rights and children’s rights, celebrated my aunt Yaye, shared an aspect of Senegalese culture by demonstrating how women tied babies on their backs, addressed racism and race relations in America, and proposed recommendations for the African continent and its youth. As I delivered my speeches, I decided to swim and not sink, though my hands and voice trembled, my body rocked back and forth, and my eyes barely saw the audience. Many peers pointed out that I looked down often and that at times spoke too fast. But overall, the students wrote that my delivery was clear and memorable and the content purposeful and inspiring.
To annotate this third paragraph, you would again first summarize it in one sentence: “The author connected her speeches to her life experiences and her topics of interest.”
You could then comment on the author’s decision to stick with her learning process even while afraid and add a smiley face to show how you felt about the passage. “It’s good to see that you committed to your learning 
.”
With every speech, I became a little less nervous, looked at the audience a little more, and read my notes a little less, but delivering the speeches never felt easy, even with all of my preparations. My peers and professor had a different perspective than I did; they focused on the progress that I had been making over time, especially in my level of confidence.
You could summarize this fourth paragraph as follows. “The author gradually built confidence in public speaking.” Connecting the author’s experience with your own, you could write: “I can certainly relate and want to use the same public speaking technique.”
Our fourth assignment involved selecting a speech by someone else and delivering that to the class and within a time limit. I chose a commencement address by Marian Wright Edelman, delivered at Lewis & Clark College on May 10, 2014, in which she talked about ten life lessons. I selected six of them: (1) to know that nothing is free, (2) to assign yourself something to do, (3) to never work just for money, (4) to not be afraid to take risks or be criticized, (5) to listen to yourself, and (6) to never give up. After I delivered that speech, one student wrote for his feedback, “I don’t think I’ve ever said this about anyone before, but you’re going places. Run for President; I would vote for you.” Another student wrote, “You really made this speech yours. For a minute, I thought you were that speaker.” I maintained an A grade throughout that course, scoring from ninety to ninety-nine for my various speeches. More than anything, I was proud of challenging myself to speak to an audience despite my fears and to do my best to learn and to share with peers an authentic part of who I was. Sometimes, our best learning experiences come from situations that scare us, but when we embrace them, we meet a more confident version of ourselves on the other side.
To annotate this fifth paragraph, you could summarize it in one sentence and add a smiley face to show how you feel about it: “The author delivered for her fourth speech a commencement address discussing life lessons, her audience responded favorably, and she was proud of her progress .”
For the above sentence, I combined the summary and response steps of annotation. The annotating process is flexible, and rigid rules aren’t important. What matters is that you capture both the main points of the text and your own response to the content in your annotation.
If you wanted to quickly express my opinion about a passage, you could write a short note next to it. For example, when the author writes, “Sometimes, our best learning experiences come from situations that scare us, but when we embrace them, we meet a more confident version of ourselves on the other side,” you could respond “Agree” next to it.
As a final step in the annotation process, you could write a brief response to the overall excerpt:
“The author’s willingness to sign up for a public speaking course, which terrified her, captured my attention because it’s easier to run away from fear than to run toward it. Her experience with public speaking illustrates the importance of persistence through fear, which could be applied to academia or other aspects of life. I agree with the author that facing our fears can lead us to become more confident about our abilities.”
After completing the annotation process of your text, you would be confident that you understood it, could discuss it, and write about it, as well as complete any assignments your professor might give you that were based on it.
If you read an assigned text and annotate it and despite your best efforts, you can’t understand it, you could discuss your reading with tutors, classmates, or your professors to get insights and other perspectives. These insights could lead you to approach the text in a way that allows you to comprehend it. Never underestimate the power of discussing a text with others! Bouncing your ideas off other minds, hearing their ideas, or just sharing your confusion and uncertainty can really boost your understanding of an assigned reading.
- What are your feelings about annotation? Does annotating seem tedious and complicated or are you intrigued by its possibilities?
- Which text from one of your courses would you select to practice annotating?
- Are you willing to commit to annotating your texts throughout your time in community college? If yes or no, why?
- Is there anything else you want me to discuss about annotating a text?
For further discussion of annotation as a way to learn to read more critically, see my previous article 7 Tips to Excel as a First-Generation Student in Community College.
Learning to become a skillful reader while in community college was one of the most important decisions I made as a student, and it served me long after I graduated. I continued to annotate texts while pursuing both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. I hope that by showing you some of the ways I annotated texts, I’ve encouraged you to continue this practice on your own, as I know it will support your growth as a learner and thinker.
Is there a point discussed in this article that would you want me to elaborate on, and why? Your feedback will help me further support you in your learning.
Reflection Exercise of the Month
The discussion above about how to annotate a text was followed by four questions. Get your notebook and pen, and reflect on those questions in the weeks to come.
Week 1
Monday: Write a five-minute reflection on the first question.
Week 2
Monday: Write a five-minute reflection on the second question.
Week 3
Monday: Write a five-minute reflection on the third question.
Week 4
Monday: Write a five-minute reflection on the fourth question.
Tuesday: Put together a plan based on your reflections.
Wednesday: Start implementing your plan for becoming a skillful reader through annotating the readings assigned in your college courses. Then watch as your critical reading and thinking skills get stronger and stronger!
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Do you want to know more about how I went from a high-school dropout to a master’s degree? Grab a copy of my memoir, Destined: A Story of Resilience and Beating the Odds, set for release in February 2025. I would appreciate your review of it when it appears on Amazon!
Thank you for reading. Wishing you all the best.
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Hi, I’m Aminata Sy. I’m the author of the memoir Destined: A Story of Resilience and Beating the Odds, in which I write about how I started out in America as a high-school dropout and non-English-speaking immigrant and yet went on to earn a high-school equivalency diploma and associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees and to land a dream career. All that time, I was a wife and mother too, and had plenty of family responsibilities. Through my blog, I offer tips to community college students on how to excel in their education.
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