David Foster Wallace “Consider the Lobster” annotations.

Ross Andersen “What the Crow Knows” annotations.

I think my annotations have significantly improved for this learning outcome during the semester. I always liked to highlight everything before this class and wasn’t actively reading. I saw a chance to develop this ability when we were given the David Foster Wallace annotated text “Consider the Lobster” for our first annotation assignment. My article’s front page I wrote “meaningful annotations only” should be used, so I chose to highlight and annotate the paragraph in the margins to summarize it. I did this so that I would know where to look for a specific quote or topic to bring up in class. By doing this, I felt as though I truly comprehended the article’s underlying message. My annotations made it simple for me to decide the quotes I wanted for Project #2. My comprehension of the article increased because of this method of annotation, and I was able to engage in class discussions. Every page would have been highlighted if I had completed this task a year earlier, and I would have had little to no knowledge or ability to locate the information I needed. I saw that my comments for Ross Andersen’s “What the Crow Knows” were lacking in writing and only highlighted the most crucial information. After reading and annotating this article, I realized what I wanted for my essay and decided to add a dash or mark. Instead of writing a lot of words in the margins, I tried out this kind of annotation to see if it would be simpler for me to grasp. I think that by highlighting only the text on the page that stood out to me as relevant, I was able to glance at it more quickly and encourage class discussion of the subjects.  I think overall my annotations for this leaning outcome have improved since coming into this class. As well as allowing me to fully grasp and understand the text I am reading so I can implement key points into Project #2.