Description: Employ techniques of active reading, critical reading, and informal reading response for inquiry, learning, and thinking.

Of the things we learned in this class, annotation was likely the most familiar to me. However, prior to this course, I absolutely hated it. I love to read, but trying to write down notes while I read has never been easy for me. It takes me out of the process and just makes it so much more boring. But despite the fact that I still don’t love to take notes as I read, learning about the different types of annotations has at least made it a little more bearable. The way that I had been taught to annotate before was so vague that it did little to help make the process easier. Once I started to incorporate the six types of annotations from “A Brief Guide to Marking Texts/Annotating”, it helped me identify what to notice as I read. Some of my favorite kinds of annotations to make are rhetorical, exploring relationships, and challenge annotations. I’ve found that rhetorical annotations help me understand the intention of the writer, which I can then bring into my argument or simply keep it in mind to see what they are truly arguing. Exploring relationships is great because connecting different ideas is a big part of writing, so exploring those connections, be it to myself, the world, or another reading, helps establish different ways that I could eventually make similar connections in my draft. My favorite kind of annotations to make are challenge annotations because they are great for forming an argument. Some of the challenge annotations that I made in Ross Gay’s Inciting Joy actually ended up being one of my main arguments in my final draft. Below I have included a picture of that annotation where I challenge the assertion that “joy needs sorrow.”

Challenge annotation of Ross Gay’s Inciting Joy

This annotation where I challenge if joy is always associated with sorrow became the starting point for one of my points in my third essay. But first, I used this annotation to answer a prompt in the homework assignment “Ross Gay Reading Response.” Below I have included the response from the homework to show how I began to evolve that initial thought into a fully fleshed argument.

Ross Gay reading response answer about the validity of Gay’s claim about joy and sorrow

Here I take the idea a step further by explaining why I think Gay’s claim isn’t totally correct, then I expand upon it using a personal experience of a time when I felt joy but only a small amount of sadness. From the initial annotation I grabbed hold of not only a flaw in Gay’s argument, but also an opportunity to draw from personal experience and build a more compelling argument of my own. This idea eventually became fully realized in my third essay final draft, which I have included below.

Body paragrapgh from third essay final draft where I discuss Gay’s points that I disagree with

This paragraph takes the personal examples to the next level and provides them as evidence against the idea that joy and sorrow are inseparable. From one small note that I made while reading Inciting Joy, I created a personal argument full of specifics that clearly addresses where I agree while not detracting from why I disagree. The fact that an entire page of writing resulted from a single sentence is proof enough of the effectiveness of annotating.

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