Reading in Conversation: A Student’s Guide to Social Annotation

Michelle Sprouse

Volume 5

Chapter Description

Students are often encouraged to annotate while reading. However, annotation is often framed as an individual undertaking, a conversation between a reader and text. This chapter repositions annotation in the writing classroom as a social activity that can support students’ literacy development. Beginning with opportunities for students to reflect on their experiences with annotation, the chapter argues that social annotation can help students practice reading for different purposes as members of learning communities. Using examples from writing students and public annotators, students will learn about social annotation in classroom and public contexts. Students will then consider several affordances of social annotation technologies—expanded marginal space, hashtagging, and multimedia enrichment—that they can use for more productive marginal conversations. Because navigating a core text and its annotations can be challenging, the chapter concludes with a discussion of reading workflows that integrate skimming, close reading, and extending to help students get the most from social annotation.

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Writing Spaces is published in partnership with Parlor Press and WAC Clearinghouse.