The way we read is personal to each of us. It is indicative of the way we think, the way that we process information, and the way we engage with the thoughts of others. It is an intimate relationship, the comments between a reader and a writer. It is a conversation that exists as King would say as a result of "telepathy" or a conversation that simply tells the writer, "I hear you."
I cannot read without a pen anymore. The inability to read and mark in my text is as though someone has tried to silence my voice. So, I often find myself cradling a book as I walk through the house searching for a pencil or pen so that the conversation may begin. I can hear your chuckles or even perhaps your doubt. But what I tell you is true. To read without marking on the page, in the margins or between the lines is akin to pushing the mute button on your own voice.
Your assignment this week is to go to this link from Brian Pickings (click the title). Read the page and then listen to Billy Collins read his poem titled "Marginalia." Think about the tracks you leave on the page. How do you read a text? Are you passive? Do you pose questions? Do you truly engage the author?
In your post, explain how you read? Describe your markings, what they mean, and how you make sense of the text. Be honest with yourself and the group. If you do not mark anything while you read, explain why you choose to be passive. Really think about this. Then describe how you chose to mark up your books for summer reading. This should be about two solid paragraphs: one for the way you read and then one for your summer reading. Then in one to two sentences, pull a favorite line from "Marginalia" and explain why you like it.
Enjoy listening to Billy Collins.
In all honesty, I am a very passive when I read. I typically only mark literary devices, if I notice them, and sarcastic comments from myself to the writer and characters of the novel. These sarcastic comments are usually, "what?!" or "who even says that?" I am very passive in the way that I read because I try to withhold my judgments and commentaries while reading. I believe that if I comment a lot on the margins of a novel I will lose the message that the writer intended for me to grasp while reading. The first book that I have ever fully annotated was The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. This is the first book that I found numerous literary devices and was really comfortable to interject my own ideas into the writing. As a result of me being able to interject my ideas into the writing through writing in the margins and highlighting my favorite quotes, this book has become my favorite book.
ReplyDeleteI was a very passive reader while completing my summer reading. From time to time, I would highlight and underline quotes that stuck out to me, such as On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King when he wrote, what is writing, "telepathy, of course,” (103). That quote stuck out to me because it showed me why King writes: to achieve a connection and share ideas with readers. Contrary to On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, I wrote virtually nothing in Notes from The Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In Notes from the Underground, I felt very uncomfortable interjecting my opinion with the author’s because I believe the author to be very opinionated and I disagreed with a lot of his comments. I also felt uncomfortable to interject ideas with the author because the narrator was very unreliable in that he contradicted what he was saying, which made it hard for the reader to trust the narrator.
“We have all seized the white perimeter as our own and reached for a pen if only to show we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages” (34-36). This is my favorite quote from ‘Marginalia’ because it reminds me of my excitement and interest while reading The Fault in Our Stars. I like this quote because it shows how engaged and interactive a reader can become with a text.
I think that when I read a text, I do not first approach it as a mind infringing on another’s, asking to be a part of the story. I start as an onlooker, grasping at the edges and feeling for the author’s style. This is when my fingers itch to write every two lines exactly what comes to my mind. After I get a feeling for how the author operates, I get lost in the story and comment on what I think relates to the characters and theme. I immerse myself in the happenings of the book as a sort of part of it rather than an audience. I think that my markings in the margins are a sort of second narration. I don’t write one word here and there, but rather whole sentences and big blocks of thought. I like to summarize what I think the author is saying with a passage in words that make it simpler and easier to state. Also, when I read a book, I am prone to not huge umbrellas of understanding, but more monstrous waves of insight that come randomly with just a sentence that might be the link between one concept in the first page and the overall meaning. Sometimes I go pages with minimal markings and then one page almost colored black with my random eureka of a theme or of a purpose of the author. I also like to mark connections to other texts I’ve read. I try to mark at least one mark on every page of a text, just to emphasize that no author writes fluff, but intentionally puts every word in a piece for some purpose. I mark words that seem out of place or sentences that are phrased interestingly. I try to mark on each page to minimize the bits of subtle genius I might miss, but I don’t always. I admit sometimes I write stupid comments and smiley faces just to remind myself if I ever read the book again how I felt at that particular time when I first read the book.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read On Writing, I did not mark nearly as much in the first half as the second. This is because King said before the book ever started that he was not writing to hold any literary merit or putting any metaphor in for any particular purpose other than he wanted to. He said he was just writing snapshots and not to look into it too much. So I didn’t. Of course I wrote some bits on the edges relating parts to others. The second half I underlined every definition and circled every point he made. I drew a toolbox with layers in it that I wrote his metaphor of a toolbox for writers in. I marked everything in the second half, but very little in the first. Approaching Notes From the Underground, I noticed mostly what pertained to the narrator’s voice. Looking back at my notes, I see that I didn’t mark up what he said so much as how he said it. I wrote a lot of my opinions in this book because I had a lot of opinions about the man. Also I made a lot of arrows and question marks… All the Pretty Horses interested me, so I think that I was much more attentive to the details in it than in the other books. I marked A LOT of eureka moments in it where there was some great relation to another book or where I thought McCarthy was stating something directly relating to the purpose. I wrote in the margins my thought process while trying to figure out the purpose and analyzing character. I underlined a lot about horses…
My favorite line in Marginalia, “how vastly my loneliness was deepened, how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,” talks of a loneliness in knowing that those who read and marked a book are far away. I just think that’s interesting. Collins makes the notes in margins sound so intimate, yet says that they make him feel alone.
^ Jankovsky, A. 7-8
ReplyDeleteMrs. Perrin, you told us to be honest so I’m not going to lie here. Being 100% honest my annotations are usually just to make sure I get the credit for actually annotating the books. If I am not receiving credit for annotations I usually do not make them. Overall I would say that I tend to be a very passive reader. I’m passive about reading because when I read novels, especially for the first time, I read either for enjoyment if the book seems enjoyable, or for understanding if the text seems more difficult. Then, after I feel a basic understanding I may go back and annotate. Another thing I do, is if after reading for a while and I realize that I have not marked anything in a while I may stop at a spot that seems easy to comment on or that seems or easy to relate to something that popped up into my head. I also do not feel comfortable annotating. One of the reasons being that I was taught to not write in books (and post its get annoying after a while) so writing in the books just makes me uncomfortable. Another reason is that I feel too caught up in trying to annotate that I lose the feelings and messages of the book, I focus less on the text and more on what sarcastic comment I have to make about the text.
ReplyDeleteI basically approached my summer reading the same way. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy was one of the best (or the worst) examples of my annotations. Most of my annotations in the book were “Dear Cormac McCarthy why the heck are you writing in Spanish??? I don’t speak Spanish!!!” Most of my comments were sarcastic, I realize that sounds crazy coming from me, and they didn't actually push my mind to think about the text, just how annoyed I was that the text was in another language. The only book that I had legitimate “conversations” with the author was On Writing the book was actually interesting to me enough that I actually engaged in the text. I actually marked the text, and pointed out the quotes that I liked and I just generally made sure to take notes on it because I actually enjoyed it. As for Notes from the Underground most of my annotations were “I don’t understand what’s going on” and “Why are these sentences so long and what do half these words mean?” I just got so annoyed and confused reading that book that I barely annotated it
As for Marginalia my favorite line is when Collins says “planted an impression along the verge.” I like it because I never really thought about the fact that when writing annotations I’m leaving an impression. I find it interesting to think about that someone else one day may read what I wrote, and I will be making an impression on them.
-Bunting, A 2nd
Writing has been a passion for me since I could read the word "the," however writing in my books did not become something I enjoyed up until my freshman year of high school. I found it unnecessary and almost scaring to the book; there was no reason for me to destroy a book like that. Freshman year, I read Shakespeare for the first time and ever since then I've been working on my own way to annotate. My first truly difficult text began my annotation ‘journey.’ It has become my way of interacting with the text both on a personal level and a critical thinking level. I write questions to myself in the margins and if the answer is found later in the book I will either draw an arrow or go back to write a page number. This helps me if I need to understand how the plot or character progressed. I underline things I enjoy or find insightful, usually putting a thought or two of mine, in shorthand, in the margin. This is to amuse myself the next time I find time to read the book. I’m often sarcastic and even somewhat cruel in my comments about characters and their choices. If something reminds me of another text, I write the name of the text in the margin and this happens a lot. Comparing connecting authors, characters and plot lines makes understanding texts much easier for me. Writing in my texts has become second nature for me and I not only do it in books for class but also books I read for pleasure.
ReplyDeleteVery rarely do I passively approach a text, but it does happen. McCarthy was a challenge, and I noticed I did not want to annotate. I had to force myself and for that reason, the annotations are few and far between. I did not particularly like the story, characters or descriptions. Nothing struck me as profound or interesting. If I have nothing to say, then there is nothing to annotate. I found King to be very engaging and wanted to create conversation in the book. It may be that his writing was more geared towards the reader. On Writing created emotions and very profound thoughts for me all while deepening my love for King’s work. Dostoyevsky was annotated not so much because of my enjoyment, but because of my constantly changing thoughts. I found making notes made it easier to keep up with my feelings about the underground man as the text progressed. The underground man’s thoughts were so unsettling that I left enraged, saddened and even confused notes in the margins. Any line that somewhat summed up one of his rants was underlined as a sort of cheat sheet for discussing the book. As for Wilde, I’m not far into his book so I don’t have a good judge of my annotations so far. With that said, I think this book should be filled with annotations.
I enjoy the line “We have all seized the white perimeter as our own” because it connects all readers together when they take on a text, almost as if after the writer is finished the text becomes the property of readers. It makes us seem whole.
When I read a piece of work, it is usually a recommendation so I would feel bad about marking in a borrowed book. However, when I am fortunate to have my own copy, my markings are rather short and uninteresting to any reader beside myself. Most of my markings are underlines, circles, stars, and arrows; underlining- for main ideas, reference points, summaries; circles around words and phrases alike- for repetition, recurring ideas; stars- for profound points and lines outstanding in-and-out-of-context; arrows- to connect past and present ideas, definitions within the texts, examples, etc. Any wording I may write is usually questions I have for the author: What does this mean? Importance? What??? I like to keep my notations rather short because I am an impatient and quick reader and want to know what happens next in the text.
ReplyDeleteSummer reading stories are usually noted with the same style as anything else I read, however sometimes I also mark literary devices such as metaphors, similes, alliteration, irony, etc.
My favorite line from “Marginalia” is the last stanza: “A few greasy looking smears/ and next to them, written in soft pencil —/ by a beautiful girl, I could tell,/ whom I would never meet —/“Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love.”” I love this line because most notations are from reader to writer, but this particular comment is reader to reader. A separate conversation can be had between this particular copy’s pages of Catcher in the Rye. This is a new power I never knew I held- to have conversation with future readers alongside our favorite authors.
K. Brav 7/8*
When I read, I tend to keep my ink off the page. I always keep three different colored highlighters by my side. I use each of the colors to represent the same thing regardless of what I’m reading. I use yellow for points that I personally agree with, pink for important, philosophical, or large plot changing passages, and green for theme related lines. I don’t like to write in my books with my own words because I feel that they are unneeded in the greatness of literary works. I think that my handwriting never properly fits in the margins of books and that my thoughts are unworthy of permanently marking. I love to read books multiple times, something I do quite often. I like to have different feelings and thoughts each time I read the same book. I think that I change my mind often, and I’d rather not force myself to always think of what I’m reading in the same way every time. I like using the highlighters because I can then go back and look at all the pink and green portions to interpret them differently once I’ve finished the book.
ReplyDeleteFor my summer reading books, I used the same method. However, for these books I used five different colored highlighters. I continued to use yellow, pink, and green for the same purposes. I used orange for passages and lines that I wanted to use for the assignments. I then used purple after we had talked in class about the books to go back through and pick out previously highlighted portions that could become useful to class discussions. For example, I went over many of my pink lines with purple in Waiting for Godot because they had gained an even deeper meaning to me. So, after going through again, all the purple in my book thoroughly backed up my group’s hypothesis for the book’s meaning. In my summer reading books, I also tried to keep sticky notes in them if there was in fact something that I needed to remember or look back at. I like to be able to remove all of them once we’ve finished with the book in class. I usually write my comments or reactions to what’s happening and sometimes I’ll try to track different recurring themes or actions throughout.
“Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
‘Absolutely,’ they shout” (Billy Collins).
I really liked this passage because of the images it brings to my mind. I have never thought of annotating as actually cheering on the author or shouting approval to them.
Bahr, S. 7/8*
When I read, it is very hard for me to annotate the book and write my thoughts about anything pertaining to the story. Up until high school, every time I engaged in reading it was for amusement so if I had a thought or perhaps a question about what was going on it was fleeting. I did not spend too much time thinking about that particular question or thought and would continue reading. Now when I read, I have to force myself to annotate and it really distracts me from the actual content of the story. It gets really annoying because when I least remember I'm really ahead and forgot to annotate so I have to go back and do it. Sometimes,however, I will find a book with quotes or ideas that I like and then will I pick up a pen and underline it. Otherwise, the only time I annotate is when I have to for school.
ReplyDeleteFor the summer reading books, I did annotate but it was not anything important. Most of my annotations for On Writing were just quotes I liked and brief main ideas about a section. One time however, when King showed us the poem that Tabby wrote about the bear and the winter, I did write many comments on that page because the poem fascinated me. For Dostoyevsky's book, I underlined a lot of phrases and things I did not understand. A couple times I wrote questions in the margin but that's as far as I went.
My favorite line from "Marginalia":
"Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird singing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page —"
I really enjoyed this line(s) because I can relate to the Irish monks. I tend to annotate a book and write comments about random things that don't even pertain to the story.
Galvan, E 2nd
Whenever I read for enjoyment I never mark anything in my books. I am a passive reader because I feel as though spending too much time searching for significant events to mark up in the book distracts me from the overall meaning that the author is trying to convey. Trying to look for every rhetorical device in the book or every shift in point of view can become tiring and make me forget what was actually happening in the story. By injecting my own opinions in the margins of the book and commenting about what I think the author wants to say, I feel as though I am changing the meaning of the story itself by absorbing it through biased eyes. To me, annotating creates premature pauses in the story. Reading is enjoyable and exciting for me because I become immersed in the story. Once I start reading a book I do not want to stop until I finish the book because I want to find out what happens to my favorite character or if the story’s conflict will ever get resolved. Sometimes, annotating keeps me from giving a book my full attention because I focus so much on finding rhetorical devices or analyzing every word the author used as opposed to trying to understand the characters and the plot of the story. Annotating books makes it harder from me to ever reread them due to the fact that all of the highlighted sentences and comments in the book cause me to focus on specific sentences that I found important at one time, instead attentively reading the text as a whole. Although I see the purpose of annotating a book, it makes you focus on the subtle details throughout the book that may reveal the author’s meaning, I prefer not to annotate my book because it interrupts the flow of the story.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, my summer reading books, especially "Notes from the Underground," are heavily annotated. For "Notes from the Underground," orange highlighter was used for words or phrases that revealed more about the character’s personality, appearance, or how underground man reacted to traumatic or pleasant events. New characters’ names that appeared in my all of my summer reading books were highlighted in green. Red highlighter was used to identify sentences or phrases that I wanted to use for my summer reading assignments. In pink pen, I circled words that I wanted to look up. My summer reading books contain post-it notes that show descriptions and ideas in the texts that were not found in any online summery source, such as Cliff Notes. Each of the four summer reading books are heavy annotated and contain many comments about changes in tone, point of view, and word choice. Of all of the summer reading books "All the Pretty Horses," by Cormack McCarthy, was the easiest book to annotate. Vivid descriptions about the natural setting jumped off the page and made it easy for me to find what I was looking for to compete my summer assignment. However, I personally feel as though the characters were dry and the plot of the story was not as intriguing as those of "Notes from the Underground" and "The Picture of Dorian Gray." It was extremely hard for me to annotate "The Picture of Dorian Gray" because the suspense Oscar Wilde used as well as the dynamics between the characters made it difficult for me to stop reading and annotate the book. I read the book once, went back, and annotated after I finished the book. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I understood both the meaning and the characters’ motives after annotation my book.
My favorite line from Billy Collins’s poem, “Marginalia,” was, “Students are more modest.” This quote intrigues me because it demonstrates how less experienced readers are more timid when it comes to annotating their texts. Students mainly discover rhetorical devices, while experienced readers look deeper to find the author’s meaning by commenting about passages and trying to connect their ideas with what the author is saying.
Judele, C 2nd
Looking back at my reading style, I did not start to mark in books until I entered high school. I hated it at first, but after awhile, it grew on me. Although I do not mark every single book I read, the process of marking the text has become a routine that is essential to my understanding of a novel.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading different kinds of text, I tend to just use a black or blue ink pen. Using different colored highlighters takes too long and is not as productive for me. When writing with pen, I create a key with the different symbols I use throughout the book. Some of those symbols consist of triangles, wavy lines, solid lines and circles. The symbols are used to highlight specific characters, important events, and the setting in different scenes. Through Billy Collins Marginalia, I found that I marked up lines that I could relate to. While reading, I tend to criticize the author points, trying to prove them wrong with my beliefs. Although the author cannot hear or see me, I receive joy from writing my own opinion in the margins of a page. I can also relate to Collins point about posing questions and side comments about points brought up. If the author says something funny or sad, I will mark my reaction on the page. Having a personal connection between the reader and the author is important to me, and that’s one of the main reasons I write through text. One last subject I find while reading is clarifying something that is complex at first. I tend to take a confusing paragraph and mark it in my own words. This helps me understand the text as I go back for review. Collins poem helped me identify the points I highlight while reading while giving me a new appreciation for marking up text.
From the summer reading novels, I noticed that the way I marked then is almost identical to the way I mark today. Over the summer, I made symbols in my books to highlight important people and details. I also found that over the summer, I would write a small summary of the each chapter. I tried to keep each one small so I highlighted the important parts. In On Writing, my goal was to underline important events that could be added to a timeline, which explained Kings life. This helped me not only see the evolution of King as a person, but also as a writer. In Notes from the Underground, I found that I was marking specific ideas brought up by the underground man. These points helped me analyze the underground man in more detail, which helped me understand the novels points better. Although some points in the summer reading novels were complex, marking up the text helped clarify different points.
My favorite quote from Marginalia:
“Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the border of every page
in tiny black script.”
I love this excerpt because it really captures one of the main points of annotations. It is also on of the main points I marks, which makes the section relatable.
Wasylko, G 7/8 Period
I have fallen victim to a fantastic addiction when I read: the need for a pen. I have been taught of the importance of annotating since freshmen year, and that lesson has been now become routine. I cannot read without using a pen. The pen guides me from word to word. The pen helps me remember how I felt as I interacted with the text. I do occasionally read without a pen, like when I read the newspaper or an online article; however, I know that without a pen, a bridge that connects me to the book physically, I have not reached my potential to connect with the text mentally. I enjoy color-coding when I annotate. I have a black pen and blue pen. The black pen is used to write down my response to texts. It is meant to record what connection I have made to the book. The blue pen is used to write down any questions I have when reading. This allows me to easily locate points of confusion when I do review the contents of a text. I use black as responses and blue as questions simply because I have more black pens in my writing arsenals than blue pens. I am trying to get into the habit of circling significant verbs. Phenomenal authors write the books I read, and I know that the verbs implemented have reasons for being inserted. I circle verbs that stand out in meaning or as sensory. Occasionally, I will write down page numbers on the back of the front cover. These page numbers are the pages of upmost significance, whether it answers an analysis question, or if I have come to an epiphany. In “Marginalia”, Billy Collins writes, “Other comments are more offhand, dismissive –/ ‘Nonsense.’ ‘Please!’ ‘HA’” (line 9-10). I do the exact same thing, but I feel that these comments are just as significant as other more sophisticated comments. These comments evince the conversation that a reader has engaged with the text; the text succeeds in delivering an emotional response to the reader. When I write down these comments, I realize that I have connected with what I am reading. I may not understand fully what is going on, but the connection has made, and the avenue to understanding can begin.
ReplyDeleteTo understand Notes from Underground, I needed to annotate. My process of annotating was alike in the description above, except I messed up with the colors. Black was questions, blue was responses. Despite this anomaly, I am still able to quickly reference and locate areas of text. I can understand when I was confused, and figure out if further comprehension of the book allows me to dissolve the confusion. Some of my annotations are short words, while others can be long sentences. I annotate to the point when I believe that I will understand my annotation if I came back to it months later. For quick reference, I would write down words that encompassed themes and motifs, like “free-will” or “hyperconsciousness”, in the text. This would allow me to skim the book and find what I am looking for with minimal difficulty. Annotation is tedious, but in the long run of connecting deeper with a text, it is completely worth the extra time.
I enjoyed when Collins says, “And if you have managed to graduate from college/without ever having written “Man vs. Nature”/ in a margin, perhaps now/ is the time to take one step forward” (line 30-33). I wrote “Man vs. Nature” down when reading Fahrenheit 451, and being able to relate to what Collins says makes this quote extremely comfortable.
Srivastava R, 2
In all honesty, when reading for pleasure I am a passive reader. I prefer to let myself disappear in-between the pages of the book, instead of inserting myself into them. If I have more than one copy of a book, I may go back later and annotate the parts that I connected with, or the parts that were important to me. However, the first read is always just to take the book as it is, and let myself get lost in it. Annotating takes this away from me, as it forces me to participate in the story, and put my own thoughts in the forefront- something that, as a writer, makes me uncomfortable to do to other people's works. This also stops me from being able to completely understand a story, because I only get it in parts and pieces instead of a whole.
ReplyDeleteHowever, when I do annotate- as I did for summer reading- I make it more of a personal experience. I spend less time writing "rhetorical device" and "aphorism" into the margins, and more time highlighting parts that impact me the most, or give me a sense of whats to come. When annotating, I tend to write guesses of what may happen in the future in the margins- for example, in "The Picture of Dorian Gray," I often found myself highlighting places where flowers were described, only to compare them to Dorian Gray's current state in the book. With more complicated texts such as "Notes from the Underground," I write a quick summary of a page or paragraph in the margins, to make it a bit easier for me to understand. Writing these summaries in simpler terms makes it easier for me to break down a text that otherwise would put me to sleep, if I were reading it on my own time.
My favorite line from "Marginalia" would have to be "Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers, Hands cupped around their mouths" (23-24). I really enjoy this line because I feel I can connect to it. Even during annotations, I have a tendency to spend more time highlighting funny parts, or inspiring parts, and to cheer on the characters through their struggles. Many of my annotations are arguing points with characters I dislike, as well.
-Avery A, 2.
Billy Collins says it best in Marginalia when he says: "[Students] scrawl "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's/ another notes the presence of "Irony" (21/22). I appreciate Collins' commentary on the student ideal of annotation, simply because I believe I follow it rather closely. I was slightly embarrassed at first, thinking of myself as "modest" and almost simplistic. However, I think it is a very interesting commentary on adolescent thinking, and required, classroom-oriented annotation. On the contrary, when I read a book outside of the classroom, my "markings" or annotations are rather crude. I will often write swear words, less than appropriate comments, and also reference other sources that may not fit into the school of appropriateness. Sometimes, I will just make pictures: smiley faces, meat cleavers (meaning the piece is choppy), or some aspect of the text's imagery. Other times, I will write things like "re-read", "meaning", or "what?" if I need to re-read or feel I need to understand the section further. In my opinion, this is a very shallow way to read. I do not waste my time analyzing every structure, every line, every allusion, nor utilizing every word on the literary list. I read simply to read. I make external connections to help me remember. I use certain comments and words in the hope for a good laugh when I re-read, or loan the book to a good friend. However, there is no depth. I understand the piece, remember its basis, but other than that it is just referential storage.
ReplyDeleteIn class or more specifically our summer reading, I followed the "student model" that Collins mentioned. I utilized the finest of literary terms, highlighted specific sections that I said: "Hey, this would sound good in an essay", and whatever other pieces I thought could benefit my discussion or school relationship with the text. I tend to shy away from myself in the classroom. I lose that crude, rugged approach in my annotations, simply out of the fear that either another student or teacher would read my not-so-lady-like comments. In place of that "shallow" reading comes very detailed, very analytical comments that melt into the classroom. I still utilize notes like Collins mentioned: calling an author a "ninny" or arguing in the side. However I feel in my writing, my true voice, my optimistic integrity is surpassed for literary terms and essay subsections. I do not think it is a bad thing either. Language classes help me put things in perspective; they help me see things in a very definitive lens. However, I do feel that I lose myself most of the time. I lose my arguments, my connections, to fine tune and make my logic appropriate, fitting the expectations of others. This is why I particularly like the above section of Collins' piece. At least how I see my own writing, I feel like Collins alludes to this loss of self and conformity in a text.
Megan Lear, 2nd Period
When reading novels, I can be related to an ambitious treasure hunter searching for the greatest gem on earth. A pen and the page’s corner are my best friends whom are always there for me. Usually for school assignments it is expected to annotate and mark-up the book, with underlining, putting stars, asking questions and identifying the usual devices: aphorism, metaphor, chiasmus and many more styles of annotation. It really helps me to understand the text from the author and the purpose of why they wrote it. Sometimes authors are very classic, and some use words searched by a thesaurus, just to complicate and smarten their words. When reading a book for my own enjoyment, such as a library rented book, I always bend a corner page if there’s something special on that page. Eventually I can get carried away on bending pages, those poor, adopted books. I read for discovery and self-assurance. There is a little composition notebook of mine that is slowly being filled with quotes from songs, books and some movie lines. Mostly books. When reading a book it is crucial to have the notebook by my side, in case I uncover a quote, or uncover a fascinating discovery of implicit/explicit meaning.
ReplyDeleteFor summer reading assignments the ultimate goal was to truly understand the text before it was discussed in class, and to freshen upon my knowledge with rhetorical devices. Also, I simply tried to enjoy the books, which was somewhat difficult because, a lot of the characters were somewhat shallow and bland, one couldn’t connect with them. There was a lot of chapter summaries and commentaries on the last pages and a lot of page bending, especially Notes from Underground. Summer reading should be paced, especially with four books. Reading with consistency will help accomplish the goals. Since two books would be covered the first semester it saved time to read the other two later in the year, which is good because, you can take the new knowledge and advice and apply it to the new books you read.
My favorite line, or saying from the poem would have to be, “perhaps now it is time to take one step forward,” (Collins 32-33). Even though he refers about man verses nature, it’s still implying the individual in general to take a step forward, and to advance with ones work. You cannot just keep to the old ways, you must evolve and adapt, go the extra mile and step out of a comfort zone.
-Turnea, D 2nd period
I’m going to be honest; I am a very passive reader. I usually only mark up my books if they are for school. For the most part, I usually only mark literary devices or when I’m confused as to what is going on at that point. Writing in the book makes me feel like I am infringing on the authors voice. As I read the book, I get so immersed in the story that sometimes I forget to annotate and have to go back and read deeper. For me, annotating distracts me from the plot of the story. I get bored quicker because I have to frequently withdraw myself from the story to annotate. So, most of the time I will read a section of the book first without annotating and then go back and reread while annotating so I can dig deeper. I really enjoy rereading because my views and perspectives on the book change. New things that I didn’t notice pop up and I’m familiar with the text so I can recognize other devices the author is using.
ReplyDeleteAs I went through my summer reading I was very passive. But, in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King I annotated a lot more than I normally do. I would highlight quotes that I liked in all my books but in King his tips for writing helped me a lot and I would write down ways to remember them or just highlight the advice. When I was reading Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky I disagreed with the authors opinions a lot and got confused very easily. What I wrote down in that book was to either pose rhetorical questions to myself or to mark a page so I could come back to reread the text so I could better understand what was going on.
“how vastly my loneliness was deepened, how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed, when I found on one page..”. This is my favorite quote from “Marginalia” because it shows how the author was affected when he saw another persons thoughts in his book. It showed him how everyone’s thoughts are different and how when he realized this the world became so much bigger for him.
Addie Gall, 2nd period
The first time I read a text, I tend to be a passive reader, marking with the color of the day an important quote or word, or the first sarcastic comment that pops into my head. I usually create very little marks, focusing on understanding what the text appears to be on the surface. I will then take a break, whether that is a couple hours or days, before going back and rereading the text. With a different color pen/marker I mark up new thoughts, different views, rhetorical devices, and then break down the previously marked parts of the text. The multiple colors on the pages are used to separate the different thought processes of different readings, and markings usually consist of brackets, circles and underlining with the reasoning and explanations right next to it.
ReplyDeleteWhen tackling summer reading, I used the same approach. If you flip through my copy of Notes from Underground you will see various colors ranging from page to page. The first time I read a section, I would highlight anything I thought was different or did not understand. I would then reread that section, and with a dark blue pen mark my initial thoughts such as rhetorical devices, the infamous man vs. self, and sarcastic comments such as “wow. Russian. Tough. Grrrr.” and “so that’s what you’d do for a Klondike bar”. Then would take a break and come back with a fresh mind and start searching the passage for what the text was trying to say. With the book being a higher-level text, I would usually have to repeat step three multiple times on one particular area until I fully understood it. The one text that I did not do this with was Stephen Kings On Writing. That I understood the minute I started reading it. Instead of colored pages, scribbled on until they resembled the physical embodiment of mass chaos, On Writing contained bracketed passages with simple explanations. I understood what King was saying and saw everything in a logical way without needing a physical breakdown in the margins to help explain it. When reading King’s novel I wanted to continually see what he had to say and had a hard time putting the book down for the annotations that I did make, whereas with Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground and Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, several steps of reading, thinking and analyzing were needed to fully understand what was being said.
My favorite line was “who wrote ‘Don’t be a ninny’ alongside a paragraph in The life of Emily Dickinson”(stanza 2, lines 15-16). I personally connected with this because I write the first comment that comes into my head, making my mark no matter how absurd it is. Anyone who then reads the marked up novel has to take it into consideration what was written. When I read that line I picture Billy Collins in the library reading and suddenly bursting into laughter and that thought makes me immensely happy.
Supina, R 2nd period
When I was first told to annotate in the margins, I was disgusted by the thought of ruining a newly purchased book. I liked my books clean, without smudges or crumbs in between the pages. Grudgingly, I would underline parts of the passage. I preferred to be a passive reader because I loved how crisp and perfect a new book was, but after taking more advanced language arts classes, the amount of notes and comments increased creating scratches of graphite next to the black ink. A little bit of each category in “Marginillia” by Billy Collins have found their way into the books I have read over the past four years. Most of the first markings in the margins were modest as Collins described by saying, “One scrawls ‘Metaphor’ next to a stanza of Eliot’s./ Another notes the presence of ‘Irony’” (20-21). I only wrote minimalistic analytical scribbles next to obvious rhetorical devices. The modest writing quickly developed into active reading. I now write comments about the characters, make connections, and am often writing exactly what I am feeling, including some rather sarcastic remarks. People have borrowed my books and come back to me laughing about the comments I leave on the page. The more I write, the more I can put together my own opinions as well as understand the author’s meaning and the text as a whole.
ReplyDeleteFor summer reading this year, I was an active reader who marked in the margins as much as I pleased. Notes from Underground was filled with my own rants, questions, and understandings of what the Underground Man would say. On Writing was a bit more difficult for me to annotate. I enjoyed reading King’s stories more than talking about them. In All the Pretty Horses I wrote much more, complaining about situations and musing about the characters. My summer reading was filled with many opinions as well as analytical notes.
One quote I like from Collin’s poem is, “We have all seized the white perimeter as our own/ and reached for a pen if only to show/ we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages…” (34-36). I like this quote because it gives the feeling of power through writing. Active reading allows the reader to show what they think and see in books, poems, or other texts.
Hornung, A. 7/8
To be perfectly honest, when I read for pleasure it does not even cross my mind to pick up a writing utensil. I would so much rather curl up with a cup of tea and lose myself in the novel than scribble in the margins. Until I hit high school, and landed myself in Mrs. Perrin’s freshman English class, the thought of writing in a book was foreign to me. It felt wrong, like I was smearing graffiti along the edges of the pages or defacing another person’s work. I tried writing in the novels assigned to us, truly I did, but I just couldn’t do it and when I did it was a word here or there. Even now when I am asked to annotate as part of an assignment, it is such a burden to me. The first time I read a story, I would rather immerse myself in the text than break it into little overanalyzed pieces. The one thing I have gotten into the habit of doing is pulling quotes that I think may speak to a certain theme or idea and write them down elsewhere for later reference.
ReplyDeleteFor summer reading, I don’t annotate nearly as much as I probably should. Mostly it’s a few words here or there, capturing my reaction to a certain passage. A lot of times I will mark down conflict or use of various literary techniques but generally I just highlight/sticky note quotes that I like and draw attention to things that I don’t understand so I can go back and inquire about them later. I especially liked annotating King’s memoir because some of his language is just funny and easy to agree with, I feel like I have a sense of camaraderie writing along with his.
“Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
“Absolutely,” they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
“Yes.” “Bull’s-eye.” “My man!”
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.”
- Bill Collins (Marginalia)
This was my favorite part of the poem simply because it is so true! This was exactly the type of student I was when I first started annotating. Passive and agreeable.
Graf, A, 2*
Being able to catch the reader’s attention in a novel and have the reader be engaged is a large part of writing, but there is no point of engaging the reader if they are not willing to be engaged. Most teenagers are not fond of marking up their texts because the books read in class are not usually something a teen would pick off a bookshelf and say, “Hey, I’d really enjoy reading this in my free time.” Although I may not enjoy the novel I am reading there is always some aspect of the story that I can relate to. I remember in around the tenth grade when annotating novels was actually graded in class and was a requirement of students. The class read an article on annotating novels and the women who wrote the article said she even writes and highlights interesting or confusing sentences in her bible. This made me realize that marking up a text should not be a scary thing. After reading this article, I started annotating the texts read in class and I would not just write simple rhetorical devices or one-word sentences that did not have anything to do with the text just so the teacher would give me points for annotating. I actually related a lot of the themes throughout the novels back to my own life. I would write simple sentences describing a connection I felt between the reader and I. Since this experience in the tenth grade I have never read a text where I didn’t at least highlight one sentence or write something in the margins.
ReplyDeleteSome texts are more difficult to annotate than others and in this category is summer reading. Despite the fact that summer reading books are not usually relatable to high school students I always try to find something that deserves my annotations and this came in the memoir by Stephen King. All throughout the first part of the memoir I annotated because he spent this time describing his life story and there were many parts that I marked as being funny or relating to me. Stephen King is a beautiful writer and I found tons of relatable quotes that I needed to highlight so I would not forget them. While annotating my summer reading I also took into account vocabulary. Both Stephen King’s memoir and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novella had difficult to understand passages and most of the vocabulary used here I did not understand. On these parts I highlighted the words and made sure to look them up once I finished reading the texts. I figured through doing this I could enhance my vocabulary while also learning something new about the text and the writer. Many of the words, especially in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novella, I found to be quite simple words, but the synonym that was used in the text was much more difficult to understand. This was interesting because although I knew another synonym for the word that was easier, as a reader, to understand, Dostoyevsky decided to choose something different because he felt that word fit the text more. The thing that I learned the most from annotating my summer reading was that through this process, although it may be boring and I might just want to get through the text, it made me grow as a reader and as a student through developing a more enriched vocabulary and relating a writer’s personal stories to my own.
Through listening to Billy Collins read his poem, Marginalia, one stanza stuck out the most:
“Students are more modest/ needing to leave only their splayed footprints/ along the shore of the page./ One scrawls “Metaphor” next to a stanza of Eliot’s./ Another notes the presence of “Irony”/ fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.”
I found this stanza to be interesting because when I first started annotating in the tenth grade this is exactly how I annotated because I knew my teacher would ask questions on a test or quiz on the rhetorical devices used in the book. After annotating a couple more texts I realized that through relating the books back to my own life and engaging myself more in the novel I found I understood the texts more than before.
- Bolger, J. 2
I agree with Billy Collins when he talks about high school students being more modest in what they write in the margins of the page. However, in my case, this is only when I read books assigned for homework. When I read for leisure I do not mark in the margins. What I do mark is where some of my favorite parts are they I may want to turn back to and read again when I’m sad. I find that I have a more emotional connection to the novel if I do not worry about having a pen nearby or if I have enough room to write what I want to say. I let myself take a moment to think about it, register the information away in my brain for when a friend decides to read the same book, and then move on with the story. I do not consider this being passive but rather letting myself have an inner discussion without any worry of what others have thought so that my own ideas are not changed or swayed to believe the same as them.
ReplyDeleteWhen I look at my marking in Notes from Underground I find that I was very organized and that I had a different color highlighter that meant different things. This was a strategy that I used to ensure that since that was the first book that I read over the summer I would be able to recall things for discussion later on in the year. However, when I was reading King’s memoir all I really did was highlight the quotes that I liked or tips that I could use when I write my own stories. As for All the Pretty Horses, I was struggling to even get through the novel so I only highlighted things that I thought might be important later on when it was discussed in class or we were tested on.
My favorite line from the poem was “Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love” because I could picture the girl at a picnic with a significant other and them enjoying lunch when she accidentally got egg salad on the book but she didn’t really care because she was in love with the boy she was with.
Every reader has experienced a day where a good novel is almost imperative. A yearn to indulge into stories, be it nonfiction, fantasy, or a romance novel is what truly drives a reader to the text. I do not believe that as a reader, it is my duty to place my voice in an author’s work. When I read for pleasure, I become so hopelessly lost into the character’s lives and little details that make up the plot so quickly that I leave no time to mark up the pages. In regards to myself, ink or graphite next to wording does not make a novel less enjoyable. I make connections and fall in love little aspects of the work mentally. Reading, for me, is not a physical relationship. I love the untouched crisp pages in a new book. I draw myself into the text through personal thoughts. I am a passive reader. I hold onto my voice as I turn the pages. I chose to hold back in hopes to gain a better understanding of the author’s opinion, before my own. After I finish a book, usually within an hour or so due to my inability to put it down, I reflect over the text. Even though there is usually no markings, I mentally flip through scenes in the book and accumulate an understanding based on the whole story, instead of marking places where I deem necessary.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading a book needed for school such as summer reading, I transform the way I read entirely. I know that it is important to gain an understanding of the author’s work. When trying to fulfill that, I cannot separate my pen from the margins. Whenever I find something that could foreshadow an upcoming even, I highlight it. I drain my ink when describing various rhetorical devices, and actions that I feel will help me get inside the characters mind. Exclamation points are left next to paragraphs when I find something I agree with. When this happens, it helps me build a relationship with the book. I am now drawn to the text and cannot help but to mark up everything I see. I believe this helps me immensely when needing information for essays and analytical needs. If I write a thought about it, that text mentally sticks with me and I am able to say much more about it rather than having to search through untouched pages and hoping to accumulate some kind of understanding. On Writing was filled with sections that had meticulous annotations that helped me get inside Kings mind. When sharing his stories about his addiction, I read through King’s struggles and then went back to try and determine if these struggles had affected any of his work. I made connections and highlighted parts that I felt impacted me and helped me to better gain a relationship with his text. I feel it is necessary to mark up a novel read for educational purposes. It creates a much better understanding and helps to bring forth more support for discussions and essays.
“I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote “Don’t be a ninny”” (Lines 12-15)
I find this quote from Billy Collins, Marginalia quite relatable. I find myself doing this more than not. I visualize everything when I read. Text makes much more sense to me when I can see it through my own perspective. I picture myself doing just what Collins describes as I sit in my recliner, my favorite reading place
Cika, M. 2
Many people seem to love to write all over their books; whether it be furious scribbling in the margins or an endless sea of sticky notes, annotating appears to be integral to the reading experience of many. I, on the other hand, am not one of those people. I did not start annotating books until freshmen year, and even then it was mostly when the teacher required it. These days I primarily find myself underlining quotes that are striking to me or that may be useful to a future assignment, and pointing out a rhetorical device whenever I see one. I don’t like writing all over the pages or anything like that, and I usually don’t write questions that I have. It just slows down my reading, and adding little comments seems absolutely pointless as I rarely reread books. I’m passive when it comes to reading. I think that I am able to “interact” with the text and “engage” the author without aggressive annotating. I feel as though annotating a text takes away from the initial immersion of reading.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, when it came to the books assigned for summer reading, I took a slightly altered approach. I read all the prompts for the summer reading work before picking up any of the books, and from there, while reading, I underlined anything that I thought would be helpful to me in completing those assignments, pointing out rhetorical devices and quotes as I stumbled upon them. But other than that slight change, I approached the texts as I usually do.
As far as Collins’ poem goes, my favorite bit is definitely “And if you have managed to graduate from college/without ever having written “Man vs. Nature”/in a margin, perhaps now/is the time to take one step forward,” (Collins Stanza 5). I feel as though it is a bit of a knock to those who do not annotate, and I found it slightly funny that this man considers annotating a “step forward,” as if one cannot interact with a text without scribbling nonsense all over it first.
Crow, M 7/8
My style of reading varies heavily on the type of text and my purpose for reading it. If I am reading for pleasure, the text is likely not annotated because I’m too busy focusing on the author’s words to interrupt them with my thoughts. After all, I did pick it up to hear what they had to say. If I am reading for school, the margins of the text are drowned with my scribbles. I underline or circle important words, put brackets around profound quotes, and swiftly write anything and everything that pops in my head. These notes vary from questions about the texts to connections I make while reading to synthesizing the author’s point myself. When reading for school it is important that I fully immerse myself in the text as it is the only way I can absorb every point the author tries to make.
ReplyDeleteAs for my summer reading books, Stephen King’s “On Writing,” is much more marked up than Dostoevsky’s “Notes from Underground.” King’s piece brought up many questions as I read, thus the heavy annotations. I needed to know if there were exceptions to his rules or what stories he chose to omit from his autobiography. However, when reading “Notes from Underground” I had marked the first half thoroughly, but part two had little markings. Because the second half was just the narrator telling a story, I found I had less to say. The philosophical first part had me wanting to reciprocate conversation, but the second part didn’t move me as strongly.
My favorite line from “Marginalia” was the last: “Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love,” (64). This ending resonated with me because it perfectly embodies how a reader can fully get lost in the world of literature and temporarily forget their own.
-Kett J 2
I really enjoy the way I read. Generally, when reading books for fun and I know I will not have to write an essay on them, I do not annotate, and prefer to simply read the book through. I love this because it allows me to focus on the overall meaning of the text and, especially in really good books, I am able to fly through them. One such experience was this summer while I was discovering the magic of the Harry Potter series for the first time. I flew through those books and loved every bit of them. However, that does not mean that I am against marginalia. I usually only annotate books for school, but it helps me immensely, and I really do love to do it. Even if we are not specifically instructed to annotate and will not be graded on our annotations, I will do it anyway. For me, it makes it much easier when discussing in class or writing an essay or doing a project if the most important parts are already underlined. And that’s what most of my annotations are: underlining. This allows me to go back and see what I thought the most important aspects of the book were while reading it. I do also write in the margins, but that is only when I think I have something worth noting. I will not note something for the sole purpose of noting it. It has to be important. For instance, last year while reading The Fault in Our Stars for AP Lang, I underlined all over the place and marked things such as “SE” for side effect (whenever they talked about being a side effect of dying) or “CP” for cancer perk, or “Oblv” for whenever they talked about oblivion. I also write my reactions to things, such as “I LOVE THIS,” or “I GOT THE POWER.” I’d love to see a person’s reaction when reading a book that I had annotated. For this reason, I think I’m probably more active than passive, but not aggressively active. Maybe I have a passive aggressive style of reading, if that makes any sense at all. I think marginalia helps me understand the text on a deeper level and helps me connect to the book personally (because I write whenever I recognize a connection), but for me, it is not a necessity.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading Dostoyevsky and King over the summer, and knowing that they were for school and we would have work due for them, I did annotate. Wherever the book went, a pen went with it (usually a Cleveland Clinic pen, I find those really good to annotate with). I used the same method as I explained for other books – I underlined the parts of the book that I thought important, wrote things that needed clarification, and wrote my thoughts. For instance, on pg. 30 of Notes from the Underground, when the narrator had just explained that he didn’t believe a single word of what he had just been saying for 30 pages, I wrote, “So he was just spouting BS…” I also wrote things that would help me when writing my essay, such as, “Godsend,” on page 102 when he was mocking her. King was a bit more difficult, and I hardly annotated the first part of the novel because it was only his memoir. I did underline the parts of the novel that were helped, such as the tools that were to go in our toolbox. This helped me once again pick out the essentials in the novel that I used to help me write my essay and do the summer reading work.
My favorite part of Marginalia is, “We have all seized the white perimeter as our own / and reached for a pen if only to show / we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages; / we pressed a thought into the wayside, / planted an impression along the verge.” This resonates with me because, though I do not need justification to annotate my books, I absolutely love flipping through a novel and seeing all my pen markings and marginalia and I just feel so accomplished when I see a text all marked up. Pure bliss.
--Dushek, K 2˚
I really don’t enjoy marking up texts. The books I read for myself have not one mark in them. What I enjoy most about a book is wrapping myself up inside the story and letting it unfold before my eye like my own private universe. Any comments I would try to make would be like booing in a playhouse; it completely disrupts the flow, and it’s bloody rude besides. However, when it’s for school, I do a lot of underlining. It’s a mish-mosh of main ideas, plots threads, connections to my own experiences, possible allusions, the occasional rhetorical device (I’m horrid at finding those) and, of course, my favorite quotes. All that’s needed is for the spot to be underlined; when I go back and read it I can usually remember why I thought this particular passage was important. If it’s a little obscure and I don’t think I’ll remember it long-term, I make a quick note on the side. My favorites or quotes that made me laugh are marked with smiley faces; it’s a little clique, but completely involuntary. If I’m really getting into the story, I’ll start writing comments (like the rare 3-liner in Catcher in the Rye at the end of Chapter 18 when I realized Holden was about to have a mental breakdown), but that’s the usually extent of my own feelings about a work. To sum it up, I mark the passages I think are important to the overall story without trying to impose my own meaning into the words.
ReplyDeleteThe above is about what I did for the summer reading books, with some slight alterations based on each text. For On Writing, because I hope to be an author myself someday, I focused most on things that I need to improve about my own writing than any sort of rhetoric. My comments were very focused on myself and what I could do to use King’s advice in my own work (I found the section on description to be particularly useful). Notes from the Underground was different for me in that I let my emotions get the better of me while reading it. I realized from the beginning that Underground Man’s personality is the same as mine in a bad/philosophical mood. I spent most of the book agreeing, arguing with, and marveling at dear Man and our shared daydreams and cynicism. I also marveled at exactly how Dostoyevsky chose to write his ideas; it was so completely perfect and I laughed at many a serious passage just because of the balls it took on his parts to actually write it down (in my copy, Section 1 Chapter 10 looks like a blizzard of smiley-faces). It was actually quite fun, and if I ever find another book like it I would consider doing it again. In All the Pretty Horses, I have mostly been concentrating on finding the main idea of the text, which is extremely elusive and hidden behind some quite clever symbolism. I’ve been more rhetorical with this one, but I think that’s exactly what this kind of text it is; you have to pry the meaning out of its shell like a clam. I have not yet read Dorian Grey, but from listening to Erica talk about it I have the feeling I’ll be doing a lot of character analysis.
My favorite line from Marginalia is actually the whole stanza about the dear Irish monks copying their Bibles. It sounds so peaceful, that they would just write anything they were feeling in the margins of their books, and in that way they would live on in the hearts of everyone who ever read that copy. It’s brilliant. My mind tends to wander around a lot. Maybe sometime I’ll try that; could surprise someone if they ever borrowed a book from me.
Maslach, K 2
I have loved to read ever since I picked up my first book. My parents would take me to the library every weekend to pick a pile of books with interesting covers and titles. I would read one book per night before I went to sleep. Then in middle school, I moved onto larger books and read for pleasure. I would pay a bit more attention to books I had to read for school, because I knew I would be tested over them later. Never in my middle school years was I taught to write in books. As I was flipping through my ninth grade summer reading packets, my eyes caught on the word ‘annotate’. I wondered, “Does this teacher really want me to write in a book…?” Freshman year, Mrs. Perrin introduced me to the idea of writing in a book and now it is normal for me to pick up a book and write my thoughts in it. The way I read depends on what I am reading. I cannot write in textbooks (they now make up 95% of what I read) and I cannot write in library books. Although I do not write in every book I read, I do write in books where annotations are necessary for me to fully understand the author. Every time I buy a used book that has annotations already in it, I like to read the thoughts of another reader while adding new thoughts to the pages. It is very interesting to me to see what they have written and I feel connected to them. I also like picking a book off my book shelf and flipping through the pages, reading thoughts from a younger me. When I read books, I write every single thought I have down. I always use a blue pen when I write in books and I always use a yellow highlighter. Occasionally, when I love a passage or quote, I find a pink or green highlighter and mark it. I pose questions in the margins. I also look up words I do not know and write them in the book.
ReplyDeleteFor my summer reading, I was a very active reader. I annotated every single book, some more than others. I wrote my thoughts and comments on almost every page. There were many parts where I used a green or pink highlighter. I wrote a lot in The Picture of Dorian Gray. I wrote many comments in the margins about Dorian’s deterioration and you can tell that my disgust with Dorian grew larger and larger until the end. All the Pretty Horses was my favorite book, partly because the story was unique. I get bored reading cliche books. The way McCarthy wrote bits of the book in Spanish made the book even more interesting—I could feel the culture of Mexico and the culture the narrator was raised around. I also am in Spanish 5, so I easily understood the Spanish words. In Notes from the Underground, I commented on Dostoevsky’s unique style of writing and I had a lot to say about the Underground Man.
My Favorite quote from Marginalia is: “And if you have managed to graduate from college/ without ever having written “Man vs. Nature”/ in a margin, perhaps now/ is the time to take one step forward.” I thought this quote was funny. Beginning in middle school, students are taught about the three different ‘man versus …’ relationships. Collins drew upon that fact and related it to a college graduate, saying that it is rare to never have recognized a Man vs. Nature relationship in a book.
Patel, D 2
My favorite books are easy to find. If you pull one of the shelf, flip through its pages, and see ink, you’re holding one of them. These are the golden ones. The ones that demand a response on my part. The ones that practically beg me to jot down my thoughts alongside the author’s – to have that conversation. For me, a line in a book can be life-changing. You’ll never find a chunk of paragraph thoroughly dissecting the story in the margins of my novels, but rather underlined sentences. These are my “landmarks,” my checkpoints, and I often find myself returning to these places for comfort, inspiration, and nostalgia. When I read over my annotations, I time-travel back to a younger me and ask myself: what was I thinking about when I marked this? Have my ideas changed between then and now? What were my questions, and has a longer life provided me answers? I consider these experiences a return to my thoughts, but very rarely are these thoughts written out in their entirety. Most of my pages are dotted with words such as “yes” and “wow” and “interesting”. Exclamation points and question marks highlight areas I’m passionate or confused about. I leave it to my future self to put the puzzle pieces together, to decipher the codes, to understand what was important enough about a passage to make me mark it with a pen. This is magical to me because I feel I’m not only getting in touch with the author, but with a past self.
ReplyDeleteSummer reading books demand a different kind of attention. Notes from the Underground especially required dedicated annotations – arrows and stars and complete thoughts outlining its pages. To me, these were essential to understanding the text. The more I wrote and questioned the more meaning I derived and clarity I achieved. Dostoyevsky was hard to understand at times, but through persisting and digging as deep as I could with my reader’s pen, I was able to reach understanding with him. Annotating helped me fully digest all four of the summer reading books and fully arm myself with the tools needed to tackle them. It forced me to examine the text as a whole rather than just the snapshots of it I enjoyed, and I think I learned more fully because of it.
My favorite line in “Marginalia” is “Anonymous men catching a ride into the future/On a vessel more lasting than themselves” (44-45). I love this statement about the Irish monks because it speaks to my own desire to put words on paper. Through it, we achieve immortality.
Keller, N 7/8
When I first read a book, my first thought is never to start marking up the pages. In all honesty, the thought of marking up the pages gives me slight anxiety: what should I write? Why should I mess up the pages of a perfectly fine novel? Two years from now when I read this book again, why would I want to see a bunch of markings all over the pages? I consider myself a very passive reader, as the only time I ever really mark up the pages in a book that I’m reading is when I am reading it for school. Frankly, I believe that marking up a book while you’re reading takes away from it; it takes your focus away from the reading and puts it strictly on what you must be writing. The way that I mark up a book really matched up to what Collins is saying in his poem. I mark where there are metaphors or other figurative parts of speech to keep myself aware of what is going on in the text and to make notes in case if I need that information down the line when working on something for that book. I also tend to star the things in the book that I really like. For instance, if I come across a quote that catches my eye, I star it so that I can easily spot it the next time I open up the book. Though I do all of this annotating for school, when I read a book on my own I choose to be passive because I would much rather put my focus on the book and what is happening than worry about writing in the margins.
ReplyDeleteFor my summer reading books, I basically just marked up anything that I thought would be useful to me when answering the prompts for the essays/work/etc. When I read a passage or line that I thought to be important to the plot of the book or the character, I would usually underline or highlight it so that it stuck out to me when looking back. I also tended to ask questions in the margins if I was not completely sure about something, or to act as a guideline in class discussion. I will say that annotating my summer reading books for this year and past years has helped me with discussions and work that goes along with the books; however, when I am reading on my own, I would rather not annotate and just focus on the book and enjoy it as much as possible.
My favorite quote in Collins’ Marginalia is, “…I cannot tell you/ how vastly my loneliness was deepened/ how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed/ when I found on one page/ A few greasy looking smears/and next to them written in soft pencil/ by a beautiful girl, I could tell/ whom I would never meet/ ‘Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love.’” I really liked this quote because for some reason it just really connected to me and made me feel something deep in my heart. I do find it very interesting whenever I receive a book that has already been annotated by someone before you; it is almost as if you can see into their mind and heart and feel what the book meant to them.
Shaniuk, B 7/8
The way I read is unlike most others. In fact, I have never been able to borrow a book. Seeing others’ thoughts written on the page distracts me from my own, and discourages me from reading deeper. When I read, I make heavy use of the circle and underline. As I go through the text, I underline what I see to be important. The things that are more important, I circle. I like to think about it like this: If I were to read a 100 page novel, my underlinings could be condensed to only 5 pages. The words I circle would be only a paragraph. However, not all of my thoughts can be accounted for by simple geometry. I often make notes in the margins, perhaps posing a question to myself (which, I will admit, I have never come back to answer) or calling a character out on something. Sometimes, I put my emotions down on the page (usually scoffing of laughing at someone or something). As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself summarizing chapters when I’m finished reading, or writing quick notes that would jog my memory a few years down the road. I would, however, say that my style of reading changes based on what is being read. If it’s a short piece, my margins are full of thought and ideas. If the work is longer, I gradually find myself marking less and less as I read. Not only do I know the answers to many of the questions I had previously asked, but many of the things I would need to write have already been denoted. When I read for pleasure, I never mark the page. While the process helps in the long run, I find that it distracts me from the text and destroys the continuity. However, there is one rule I always follow when marking up a text: use pencil. Pencil allows me to rework my thoughts and erase an underline or circle if it isn’t looking quite right. I also find pen’s bleeding to be quite intrusive as I read.
ReplyDeleteMy summer reading books were each annotated a bit differently. For example, when I read King, my annotations were brief. I summarized each section with two or three words that I later looked back on. In fact, these summaries replaced the underlines and circle that I am accustomed to drawing. When King wrote about the toolbox, I drew a toolbox at the end of the section and added everything he said I would need. Dostoyevsky, however, required a bit more thought. Knowing that I needed to analyze a total of five passages, I found passages I enjoyed and drew a star on the bottom corner of the page. At the end of the book, I could quickly flip through all the pages and find my stars. While reading, I also found myself making note of the Underground Man’s strange behaviors. I drew brackets around important sections, and made sure to note why the brackets had been drawn. Dostoyevsky also forced me to ask more questions in the margins (many of which never had answers).
My favorite passages from “Marginalina” goes like this:
One scrawls “Metaphor” next to a stanza of Eliot’s.
Another notes the presence of “Irony”
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal (20-22).
When I read the poem, this was one of the lines that made me laugh and think back about how I used to annotate. I would mark literary devices that sometimes didn’t exist, just to show the teacher that I knew what I was talking about. However, as I’ve matured, I have come to realize that annotations are for me. I don’t need to try and impress others with literary devices that actually don’t exist.
Ryan M- 2nd Period
As a reader, I feel as though the use of annotation is a very powerful tool when used in a correct manner. Personally, I mark up books mainly for things I find profound. Things that speak to me, things I find relatable, and things I feel will be useful towards assignments asking for reflection on the piece. Putting academic requirements aside, the marking of a book creates a space to write down your interpretation of a certain work of literature. It allows you to look back on a book later on a remember how you felt while reading and why you felt that way. I find this special because inside the stories are memories too complex to interpret into words. Whether it your first glance at romance, or your first look of tragedy, books have a secret way of breaking innocence from early on in readers, this change though very subtle, can be even more impactful when documented. I read slowly, and I often find myself reading things 2 or 3 times for clarification. I underline words I’ve never heard before, and quotes that provide an emotional connection for me. I also love the way that a novel can be so two sided. At first glance a book can be just a basic simple story lacking emotional appeal and complexity but when your break it apart, possibly one of my favorite feelings is reaching that full understanding. That moment understand completely the actions of the characters and when you can defend the literary work against peers who disagree. Jotting down questions in the margins provides me with conversation points, or things I want to look back on later on while reading a text individually. Markings enhance the entire reading experience and help to lead knowledge one step further than its base meaning.
ReplyDeleteIn my summer reading novels, I found my markings to play a huge role in my overall understanding, Especially in Notes From Underground, the underground man was such a confusing character at base that I found it incredibly helpful to jot down things I could put together about him to help me make sense of his persona in the most I possibly could. In on writing, I mainly found myself underlining things I found important that King said. Relating this piece to the novel we read in AP Language Arts in 11th grade, How to Read Literature like a Professor, I underlined things that not only related to that, but that further enhanced my understanding of literature. The markings in these novels helped me while writing my essay because I had profound quotes underlined that I found incredibly impactful, and I also had lines that described the characters, also helping me to characterize them in my essay. Aside from the essay, I broke things down a lot in the book itself that I would not have gotten out of it had I not done so.
"Other comments are more offhand, dismissive —Nonsense.” “Please!” “HA!!” —that kind of thing.” I enjoyed this quote from Marginalia mainly because I find myself doing this a lot more than I probably should. I write things that make me laugh while looking back at them because I use stars or single exclaimed words to describe my feelings at that particular time.
Mewhinney M, 2
I love to read novels. When I read, I read to escape for a while and destress myself. I get into the book and I cannot get out, so while I read I don’t think of myself reading words. I think of myself as watching a movie play in my mind and I’m right there in the action of it all. When I was in middle school and I would read the Harry Potter series or any of my teen novels, I would lose track of time. I would get lost in each sentence. So writing and marking up the pages didn’t seem important because I enjoyed each drip of the author’s own words that I didn’t want to insert my own, thinking I would mess up the perfection. Each novel was special to me; I did everything in my power to keep them from dropping or getting a smudge, obviously failing due to the over use. Writing on the page meant I was messing with the story and the author’s wonderful ideas. Not until last year when I started reading The Green Mile by Stephan King did I mark little symbols to sentences I liked or writing “Ha!” next to something I thought was witty and made me laugh. I suppose that while I read more my little scribbles will turn into marking up multiple passages I enjoy, but for right now I keep my thoughts to myself. For the author deserves their spotlight and I enjoy giving it to them. If I enjoy something said, when I reread the novel I just know once I get to that part that I liked it. I don’t need a marking or a symbol because if I like it now, I’ll still like it then.
ReplyDeleteWhen I started reading my summer reading books, it was different for each one. Notes from Underground right away I just started underlining. I underlined things I thought sounded quotable, or even philosophical in a way. I didn’t mark anything other than just underlining. As I got deeper into the book I would underline and mark themes I noticed, such as “suffering” or “snow”. Marking down definitions of words I didn’t know and words that were repeated received a squiggly line underneath it, sticking out amongst the rest. I would summarize long passages and mark when he said things that made me mad and proved that he was unreliable. For On Writing, in the beginning it was more summarizing so I can go back to it easier for my essay. Once he started to talk about writing I would understand the bolded statements and main important topics. I did more underlining in this memoir because it was more informational than analyzing. Whenever I found something interesting or seemed important, I would underline.
My favorite line in “Marginalia” by Billy Collins is:
“Students are more modest needing to leave only their splayed footprints along the shore of the page. One scrawls “Metaphor” next to a stanza of Eliot’s. Another notes the presence of “Irony” fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal” (Line 17-22).These lines are so honest and funny to me because its completely true. In the beginning when I started annotating I would only find certain things that applied to be imagery, irony, or a metaphor. But as I annotated more as I go along, I see myself making markings that do not involve anything along the lines of rhetorical devices. They are ideas that come into mind when I read, possibilities that the author could have been thinking or making a remark to, and even ideas that compare to another reading. My annotations become more honest, just like these lines he wrote.
S Gut 7/8
DeleteI have always enjoyed reading, whether it was a short passage within a magazine or a full on novel. But, I was never one to annotate in my books. For awhile it was because I simply cherished books; writing in them seemed to be ruining them. When I truly love a book, I like to keep them pristine and new. I was appalled when I got into high school and it was mandatory for me to annotate. I do have to admit though, once I got used to doing it, it truly opened a door. I have always had a deep conversation in my mind with the author. I love it because it is like a television inside my head! I am addicted to being completely engulfed in the text. But once I started annotating, I finally put my thoughts on the page. I like to do it now because if I want to go back, I can tell where my mind was at the time. I can see the questions I wondered about and see if I am able to answer them now. It's a good way to keep myself on track and not to lose focus, especially when it is a book I have to read but do not necessarily enjoy.
ReplyDeleteIn my summer reading books, I wrote like an animal in On Writing. I fell in love with that book from page one and I had so much to say about it. But I did the normal annotations as well; the underlining good quotes and finding metaphors and what not. But I made so many comments on things I liked or I agreed with. King certainly has a way with his words, and I was instantly hooked. In Notes from the Underground, I am not going to lie, I was always lost. So, most of my annotations consisted of question marks. I underlined good quotes and excerpts I enjoyed, but it was definitely harder to follow.
My favorite passage from "Marginalina" is the following. “Other comments are more offhand, dismissive-/“Nonsense.” “Please!” “HA”. I liked this because it described me perfectly! I am that person that if I see something that humors me; I will write ‘hahahahaha’ down. I assure you my annotations do get more in depth than that, but I like to write nonsense down every once in awhile. Don’t we all?
As a reader, overall, I tend to be passive. I do not see it as being completely passive because I do question what authors say or how an author decides to play out a plot. However, I do not write in my books because for me it takes my mind away from what I am reading. I want to enjoy the text and what the author has to say and when I have questions or comments, I will usually engage in intense conversations with other people who have also read the same book. This way the excitement or disappointment of the book is not cut off by stopping every couple sentences to think of what I should write. The only times I go back and stop myself is in the case of not understanding the text or big words. Even when re-reading a book it is for the enjoyment of reading something I love and not (what I consider) over-processing. I really only annotate when it is for school. Whether it is for a grade or not. However, not annotating in the book does not mean that I do not analyze the book.
ReplyDeleteFor my summer reading, I annotated a lot more than I have in recent years. These books were a little harder to process. Especially The Underground Man. I definitely tried to understand more and did not just underline. My thoughts were actually written down instead of kept in my head. For the King book, there were a lot of repeated ideas that were marked up and interesting thoughts that I had never had for writing. Of course, throughout the book there was a lot that could not be marked up because it had no pertinence to what needed to be analyzed. A lot of my comments made are sarcastic and shortened enough so I know what I was thinking at that moment.
My favorite line from the poem ‘Marginalia’ by Billy Collins is, “Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love” (64). I see it as this girl just loving what she is reading and just can’t put the book down. This is how I feel about (most all) books I read, because I get so intensely engrossed and I just can’t take my eyes off the pages. Even if I need to eat or take care of basic everyday needs.
Sarah Palmer, 7/8
When I read books I prefer to not mark up the pages. I am a passive reader because I like to read through a book from beginning to end and submerge myself into the experience of another world. For me, a book is meant to take you on a journey away from your own thoughts. I feel that when I mark up a book I am taking away from its essence. I may technically own it because I paid for it with money, but it will never truly be mine because it is the author's thoughts. They are the one who went through the time and effort to create their piece of art. To me, reading a book is just like going to an art museum. I can look at the pieces of art hanging on the wall, take all the notes I want, and study it as much as I want, but I can never touch it. No matter what I do with a book, I feel like it will never truly be mine.
ReplyDeleteThat being said though I have still marked up many books for school. For my summer reading, and school books in general, I feel like I do need to mark them up for the convenience of finding information. I may not like doing it, but it helps with the school work. When annotating for school I will usually write in questions I have or mark quotes I think are interesting. I will also write little summaries at the end of chapters or sections to help me clarify what was happening. In On Writing I often just underlined quotes I thought were very important and could help me with my work. While with Notes from Underground I had to write summaries, and wrote in questions about things I did not understand. I only try to mark up the book unless it is absolutely necessary.
My favorite quote was, "'Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love'" (Collins 64). I thought this quote was amazing because I can relate to it. In some of my books there can be a strange stain found because I loved a book so much I could not put it down even to eat.
LoDolce, A 7/8
Like the majority of my classmates, I too am regretfully passive.
ReplyDeleteAs cliche as it sounds I long to leave a mark on this world, to leave insightful footprints, I guess as evidence I was there.
Yet at the same time I think there are other, perhaps more conventional ways to leave a mark that isn't a literal mark on a page, but instead maybe a speech, a composed musical piece, an blueprint of a building, or even a novel work of your own.
When I read I enjoy to read at night because I'm not interrupted by surroundings, I don't have to worry about classes, or parents, or anything. Just the little voice inside my head narrating the words of the author.
Some may say it's almost sacrilegious to write in books because it's the authors piece of work and nothing should be added to it and it's horrible to do so. I'm torn between this view and the contrasting view of pro-commentary in books because honestly I only write in books if I'm forced to, much alluded to in the poem how students only write "metaphor" and such is exactly what happens sometimes. Similar to a lot of things in my life sometimes I plan on doing something and before I can get to it I'm forced to do it, therefore losing my initial motivation to do it.
I feel as if the forced energy behind marking in books has made my motivation to do it in the negative zone because it becomes a science and not an art.
I feel as if the same process takes place of analysis with the facade of "what do you think" coming into play. The process becomes mechanical, similar to a machine, leaving not enough space for free,creative thinking.
As I mentioned before I reluctantly mark up books, and the same goes for summer reading. I actually really enjoyed Notes, and because of this I read it pretty quickly. Usually if I enjoy a book I fly through it, I'm not sure why I just like books where I can't stop turning the pages. King on the other hand was kind of a slow-read and I didn't relate as much so I had fewer, less content-relevant markings and more analysis markings. For Notes, I related to the book and the underground man more in his thinking, especially towards the beginning on the book. So when I did mark up the book, it was more content-related.
As for my favorite line in the poem I really liked, "how vastly my loneliness was deepened" (57). I actually really liked this line because Catcher In The Rye by J.D Salinger is actually one of my favorite books. I really relate to this line because I related to the whole book as well, and felt very similar to how the speaker of this poem felt. The heart-warming ending to this poem honestly makes me feel guilty for not marking in my books, and maybe one day I will do it willingly.
Bethany Westphal 2nd period
When reading books for enjoyment I do not like to write in them very much, if I do it is always in pen. I am more of a commenting annotator, I connect with the characters rather than comment on the author’s writing. If I don’t agree with what a character is doing, I like to draw a frowny face or if I do like it I will draw a smiling face. I put stars next to passages I really enjoy. I usually like to mark up allusions so I can look them up later. I like to connect books I am reading to other things I have read or seen, so in the margins of a book I may write a movie title it reminds me of or a song lyric. I am for sure a doodler so I doodle pictures all over the margins, if a book loses me (cough cough Notes From The Underground) I will doodle all over those pages, but occasionally I connect these to the text. I’ll draw little pictures related to what is happening in the text. I like to comment on the character’s actions usually I say things like, “RUDE” “SO ANNOYING” “I HATE HIM” “YES!!” “STOP BEING STUPID”, as you can tell I write in all capital letters so the characters can really feel my anger. I guess I usually only comment when the characters make me angry, or very happy.
ReplyDeleteIn the summer reading books, I paid more attention to the writing then the stories themselves because that’s what we are looking at. I wrote more comments about the rhetorical devices being used things like, “metaphor” “personification”, but I still commented on the characters. Especially in Notes From The Underground did I focus on the characters, because man I hate the Underground man. He was so whiney, and I definitely wrote that in my margins. Annotating isn’t as personal when it is being graded, and I sensor what I would normally say when it may get seen by others.
My favorite line in this poem was “trying to imagine what the person must look like who wrote “Don’t be a ninny” alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson” (Collins). This line made me laugh out loud because I would totally write that! I love Emily Dickinson and I think it’s hilarious that someone would write that about her. This poem is so honest, I really enjoyed listening to it.
Parey C 7/8
Am I allowed to comment again? I really like seeing what everyone's favorite lines of the poem were. Ok please don't mark off my grade because of this.
ReplyDeleteCali Parey 7/8
I had not started annotating books until two years ago when I was required for summer reading. When I first read that I would have to annotate a book the first question that popped into my head was, why would they want me to ruin a perfectly good book with pencils marks along side the text? When I started writing in the books that I had to read I learned how much I hated doing it. I would often find myself writing down thoughts on what the author had been talking about and then when I was finished I would have to go back to reread the entire passage because my focus had been taken away from the authors main idea on the page. That is why I consider myself primarily a passive reader. I enjoy getting lost in novels with my own thoughts staying off the pages of the authors. Clean pages give me a chance to still be able to reread the book and enjoy it once again without any distractions. I visually connect from the author’s words and create images in my head to help describe what is going on in the text, so there is nothing more that irritates me than being pulled from my own display of ideas to write down what words can barely describe. Of course there are moments where I will pause to grab a piece of paper to write down a page number, literary device, or disagreement I have with the author when I might have to incorporate in school assignments but other than that I am an extremely passive reader.
ReplyDeleteHowever, for summer reading I decided to annotate all four books because I recall seeing a sentence stated by Mrs. Perrin saying, “I will be checking all books for annotations.” I definitely did not want to take a chance of not annotating and getting in trouble when the school year started so I marked the sides of the texts in each book similarly to what Collins had described, “If I could just get my hands on you, Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O’Brien, they seem to say, I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.” His thoughts had described mine perfectly when I had read one of my summer reading books. In the underground railroad my focus was on the literary devices being used because I had not been able to piece together the deeper meaning of the texts so when I had to write my thoughts in the margins they turned out being full with anger toward the author as to why he wrote something that I could not understand. When I started talking to my classmates to better understand the text I could then go back and look at what I had wrote before to see how my thoughts had changed between the time reading the book to fully discussing it with my peers.
“Students are more modest needing to leave only their splayed footprints along the shore of the page” (Collins 17-19).
This is my favorite line from “Marginalia” because I can really relate to it. Being a student I look for more of the literary devices in the text at first instead of trying to interpret what the author is saying. It shows a contrast between student readers and well-developed readers.
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ReplyDeleteTruthfully, I am quite passive when reading. I underline certain things that I feel may have importance, but I do not really do much marking. Sometimes I will write questions about what is happening that I do not quite understand. Other than that, I am a quite passive reader. I feel that when I stop to underline sentences or circle words that I lose the flow or reading. I am a person who easily becomes distracted by the simplest of things so if I stop to do anything, even if it is to underline, I run the chance of getting distracted and forgetting what I am doing. I also just have a large problem with writing in books. I dislike how it looks, and it annoys those who want to read the book for enjoyment to have to deal with scribbles and lines cutting through the text. I just want to read a book initially just for the enjoyment. I do not like having to stop in the middle of a page and wonder if I should underline something because it might be important to the text. I believe that there is no true way to know if something will be key to a book until it has been read cover to cover. Otherwise something that Mary sue did on page ten that you thought was so important could turn out to be absolutely nothing. I cannot decide whether something is noteworthy or not until after reading the book, and by the time I go back there is not much interest in the book, so the annotations are few and far between.
ReplyDeleteIn the summer reading books there were three types of ways I annotated. In Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, I annotated by underlining quotes I liked or anything I thought was funny or good imagery. I understood and enjoyed the book so the annotations reflected the fact that I understood and left little notes about how much I disliked the book or how confused I was about what I was reading. Which leads to my second type of annotating, which I used in Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The second type of annotations I used includes numerous amounts of question marks. I would underline phrases that did not quite make sense and I would write questions in the margins like, “What the heck does this mean?” and “Why is this important… you seem to be babbling about nothing.” The annotations were less focused on the figurative language than the actual meaning. I struggled to understand what the Underground man was trying to say because my mind would wander. The third way I annotated was a mixture of the two which I used on the last two books we had to read. These ones I understood, but had some questions in certain parts. I did not dislike them, so they held fewer annoyed negative comments than Dostoyevsky’s. This kind of annotation focused more on the figurative language than the meaning because I understood what the author was talking about, but there was some clarification needed in these books, so I noted that in the margin.
My favorite line from “Marginalia” was, “We have all seized the white perimeter as our own.” I liked this line because the margin is all ours for our own use, and for our own ideas. It was originally the author of the writing’s margin, but we “seized” it and made it our own.
-C. Lenhoff 2nd period
As a reader I have always been more passive when I read a book for the first time. I have always enjoyed reading a book in its entirety, and only after I have finished the book I begin to really look into how I felt. When I was younger I often was yelled at if making marks in my books, as they were usually borrowed from the library. So when I entered high school and was told I need to annotate in my books I had a hard time doing so. It took me a long time to actually enjoy writing in my books as I read them. In the past few months though I find myself reaching for a pen when I am reading in order to write down things I find interesting or I can relate to. I write them down for various reasons maybe it has just become a habit I formed in school. Writing in the margins has become something I do not because I have to though but because I grew to enjoy it. So when I started this year’s summer reading I had less trouble with the idea of annotating as I went along. I just picked up a pen and began to mark down things I felt spoke to me within the book. This held the most truth in On Writing, I found so many stories or things that he said to hold meaning in my own life. That was harder to do with the other books, as they were not as modern and personal as a story about a real mans life can be. When I found it though as it was more rare that made it even more exciting. Almost reassuring, no matter where or when a book was written the stories of people are not that different. I also still annotate things that catch my eye in terms of literary devices in order to help me to understand the text as a whole. Breaking down the texts always seems to allow me to pick up on the little things that bring new meaning to the entire book. In this years summer reading for the first time I started to move away from annotating to get a grade and towards annotating to help me understand a book.
ReplyDeleteThe line that I enjoyed the most in MARGINALIA is when Billy Collins writes
“We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;”
I find it so compelling to think of all the different reasons that we sit down to read and write in a book. This line in captures so much of what the poem choose throughout. We all come and sit down and write in books for different reasons and, we all get out of a book something different.
A. Sansone 2nd period
I entered Brunswick High School my freshman year as the rebel who utterly refused to write in a book. I had grown up learning that it was a sin. I believed that a book was so much more than what I had merely interpreted it as, so to take ink and persuade the next reader with my thoughts was shameful. To this day I find it difficult to mark up my own personal books because I can read a story through a different lens each time, and past marking can disrupt news thoughts. Now, as a senior, I have grown to make small strides to have a new relationship with literature. I often use brackets for quotes I admire, and boxes around specific, repeated words that might have significant meaning to the text. Rarely will I ever use a highlighter in a book, or a pen: it’s a pencil or nothing at all.
ReplyDeleteI have adjusted to the life of critical analysis for summer reading books and have expanded my markings. In On Writing, for example, I labeled certain sections with a single word to help define the passage due to the books lack of chapter names. In addition I used color coded post-it notes to identify themes, anecdotes, etc. I was very passive in Notes from Underground. I only sought out ideas that related to the world as a whole, rather than the Underground Man’s specific encounters. My responses that I write out are most never reactions like “haha,” or “that’s interesting,” but rather words that summarize by feelings or the feelings of the author.
Marginalia, by Billy Collins, was at first foreign to me due to my lack of annotation directly in a book, but I did feel a connection to the last stanza:
“A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil —
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet —
“Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love.”
This stanza reminds me that any piece of writing has a specific relationship to each individual who reads it, and the responses from others always need to be respected and sometimes taken into consideration when reading ourselves.
-Grabowski, H. 7/8
In all honesty, my reading style is very contingent on what I am reading. If reading for pleasure, I have a tendency to be a lot more passive and just enjoy the novel. If I’m reading for school, however, I do annotate. This is more due to necessity than actual personal preference though. I mark these books up when I see literary devices or a specific difference in sentence structure. I also use it to analyze character development or just particularly difficult chunks of text I need to break down. When It comes to novels that I read for enjoyment though, I don’t really like to mark up the text. When I’m annotating, I have to pause and think about what I’m writing and most of the time I’m thinking faster than I’m writing. It disrupts the flow of the story for me and I don’t enjoy it. When I’m reading for pleasure I just want to see what happens, I want to immerse myself into the world that the author has created for me and not worry about writing little notes about author’s style or literary devices, etc. It takes the fun out of it for me. The pen is intrusive. Whenever I look back or reread my book, I don’t see little notes from the past and it doesn’t help me understand the book further, I just see pages that were once a pristine white now marred by blue and black ink.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading my summer reading books, I did mark up “Notes from the Underground” more so than any of the other texts. This was because I was intrigued by many of the Underground man’s viewpoints and his philosophies. The novel really made me think and while I would have just read it straight through without annotating had I been reading it for pleasure, I did have a lot to say about the book in my annotations. In “On Writing” though, I had to force the annotations a lot more and because of that I think my reading felt a lot more disjointed and less enjoyable overall.
My favorite quote from “Marginalia” was, “Students are more modest.” I found this to be particularly interesting as in the case of our class it seems to be very true. You, Mrs. Perrin, have said how vital annotating is to your reading process but we as your students find it to be more hindering. I personally struggle with annotating. We as students are more cautious when marking up the text, it doesn’t come as freely. We have to think about it and therefore it makes it more difficult for us.
-Harris, Sam 2*
You are correct. To me, marking the text is just a moment for me to share with the author. It is my conversation, my moment to contemplate the world pressed between pages, my time to just engage in the words that dare to invite me in. A hinderance for me, no. It is about that moment and that time. Egg salad would not be my mark: a coffee ring or coffee footprint. Thanks for chatting:)
DeleteTo most teachers’ disdain, I don’t write very much at all in my books. If I do, they are simply one word next to a paragraph here or there. But when picking up a book after I have read it, one can expect to find lots and lots of highlighting. I am an emotional reader; I love to connect to the emotion of the literature before I delve into the allusions and symbols. If something evokes any kind of emotion in me, I highlight it. When I come back to the books and look for those highlighted portions and reread them, it evokes the same emotion, and if I can’t seem to remember why it was I highlighted it, I know that it wasn’t as important to the text as a whole as I had thought at that particular point in time. Only when I do things for school do I write in the margins. As Collins explained, I am the student that simply writes ‘metaphor’ next to a line or two. It’s amazing to me to allow the books to create the same emotion and thought through just the text on the page instead of my simple break downs. I feel as though it paraphrases the author and takes away from the text itself.
ReplyDeleteFor the summer reading, I did as I described above. Except with these, a lot more of the highlighting was done for important pieces of information about the character or different literary devices that pop out. I am not one to heavily mark the margins until discussion. I know in my head what my own thoughts are and if I simply jog my memory by rereading the same passage, the same thoughts and emotions come back. I like to hear other perspectives and write those down so when I come back to them I can think about things more open mindedly. This is probably why I have always received low markings when teachers check for annotations because all I do is highlight and they think I’ve highlighted random things to make it look like I’ve annotated. Although with summer reading, I do pose more questions than if I were to read for pleasure. I’ve learned throughout my school years to question an author; most of the time I am shot down with reasoning that comes later in the book, but the times when the question isn’t answered I become actually quite proud of myself.
My favorite line from Marginalia would be: “I remember once looking up from my reading,/ my thumb as a bookmark,/ trying to imagine what the person must look like/ who wrote “Don’t be a ninny”/ alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.”
I actually find this to be quite hilarious considering I would never write something like that in a book. It just goes to show how everyone’s personalities come about through how they do different things: even writing in the margins of a book. Who would’ve thought?
Gettle B, 2
When I read, I tend to mark things I do not know or seemingly love. I forget to write in margins many times because I’m so engaged in the book that I forget I am actually reading. I feel as if I am in a movie more than reading a book with no pictures. My imagination runs wild and I forget to make notes unless I stumble on a word and my train of thought stops to figure out the word or idea. I then mark it down because it broke my flow in my reading. I also seem to always have questions when I read, which is similar to watching a movie. I want to know everything about each character and what’s going on before it even happens. I tend to read very fast to keep up with my quickly moving ideas as well.
ReplyDeleteFor summer reading, and in On Writing especially, I would summarize in a few words what I just read to keep up with all the different stories that were happening at the beginning of the book. For Notes, I just took small marginal notes on what happened for the chapter at the beginning of each so when referenced, I could know what each chapter generally spoke of. At the end of each chapter, I also like to put my thoughts of how I felt or what questions I have to see if they are answered later on in the book or by someone else in class discussion. Also, in the poem, I love the line where it says “a few greasy looking smears,” because a lot of times when I read, I also eat so I do the same thing. I caught myself laughing because the poem related to me in a funny and realistic way.
Camille Simonitis
To answer the question of how exactly I read, I can not help but remember all of the times that I have been curled up in an arm chair reading and then finding a statement in a novel that strikes me. I would then go scrambling into the kitchen to look for a pen to mark it down with. When reading for pleasure, I tend to underline phrases or write in the margins to indicate to future readers exactly what I thought as I read. So that they could sit down and picture me curled up in that arm chair, scrambling into the kitchen to get a pen, to comment on what stood out to me within that text. That may seem conceited, but that was how I read and got my thoughts down.
ReplyDeleteAs far as annotating my summer books, I did it in a similar way. I remember very clearly the amount how much I annotated Notes From Underground, I marked up everything he said that I could relate to or offered a new perspective. At first I did not enjoy the novel, but the more connections I made, the more I enjoyed it. This is all because I could connect the old literature with my life and modern times. If everybody made these connections as they read, I'm sure that they would be much more pleased with summer reading.
"I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote “Don’t be a ninny”
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson."
I like this line from Collins's poem because it shows the diversity of people that can read one story and the thought of that anyone reading one specific book amazes me.
Javorsky, R 2
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ReplyDeleteWhether I am a passive reader or not depends solely on why I am reading. When reading for pleasure, I tend to be a passive reader. I do not mark up the text for the several reasons: the first being that it disrupts the continuity of the text and when marking a book, I tend to lose my train of thought. I have found that when I am frequently stopping to annotate I lose sight of the meaning of the text. The other reason I tend to be a passive reader when reading for pleasure is that I consider marks on text to be a sacrilegious act. All the books that I own are brand new and in mint condition, and I have a hard time tarnishing them. I like to keep them untouched because when I choose to read them again I can pretend that I am reading the book for the first time. When reading for analysis, my annotating habits are the opposite. I make note of literary devices and figurative language by writing in the margin the device/language used and its significance to the piece. I imprint the pages of books with questions for the author, the characters of the book, and myself. When reading a particularly difficult piece of literature a common question I pose is “What is even going on?” When I find my answer, I like to find the page where I posed the question and answer it. Whenever I come across something that I feel is important, I underline it. Occasionally I attach comments or questions to the underlined portions. When I read a line that I like or fall in love with, I tend to circle or star the line. Although my annotating skills may be similar to that of many of my classmates, I have one quirk when reading that I feel most people do not share with me. When reading any book, the first thing I do is read the first paragraph of the book, then the last paragraph of the book. I do this for I feel that first and last thoughts from an author have the power to excite, disappoint, and/or intrigue me, and it gives me an idea as to what to look forward to when reading the rest of the book.
ReplyDeleteI tackled annotations for summer reading differently than I would have if I was just reading a book for analysis purposes. My annotations for each of the summer reading books were heavily influenced by the prompts for the work that went along for each of the books. While still taking a holistic approach to annotating the text, I focused more of my attention on what the prompts were asking. I had a particularly difficult time getting through the Dostoyevsky piece when reading it for the first time. Over half of my annotations consisted of me asking what was going on or what the Underground Man was saying. Upon analyzing the text again, I was able to answer most of the questions I posed and the noted areas of confusion were cleared up. Annotating each text helped arm me with the tools I need to tackle class discussions and other activities that relate to the summer reading books. If I had chosen not to annotate my summer reading books I think that I would have lost much of the insight and understanding that I gained from annotating.
My favorite line in Marginalia is “Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love” (64). This ending stuck out to me because it shows how readers intertwine their own world with what is going on in the world of the book they are reading. It also speaks to the remarkable ability that authors have to evoke strong emotions that leave a lasting marks, literally.
Aguinaga C, 7/8*
The way I mark up a text honestly depends on how much time I have, or am willing, to put into it. When I have all the time in the world, I will sit down and analyze each word and sentence to find the deeper meaning in everything the author has to say. I have grown to truly enjoy tearing apart a piece of literature. I feel accomplished and excited when I finally put all of the pieces of the puzzle together.
ReplyDeleteWhen I have less time to devote to the text, I tend to look at the surface and pull out the more obvious details. I will often pose questions but instead of diving even deeper to find the answers, I will write the question down and maybe come back to it at a much later time. I leave my reasoning and discoveries in the hands of others, allowing them to influence my opinions instead of creating ones of my own.
Regardless of time, underlining and using brackets are my go to methods. The margins are filled with a few key words describing what I underlined or bracketed. Another method I love to use is color coding. Each topic that we need to pay attention to in the book is assigned a color and it makes looking back for discussions or assignments much easier and the thoughts on the page look neater. I have also started to circle the words I do not know and will write the definition near it for future reference. I used this often in Notes because I would have been even more lost without it. Another method that I used for summer reading, specifically for On Writing, was to summarize each chapter in a few bullet points. This helped immensely when needing to refer back. Also for On Writing, I would write a few bullet points next to the summary relating each section to what King taught the readers about writing, following the prompt for the essay. Having a purpose for reading made it much easier to stay engaged.
My favorite line from “Marginalia” is “We have all seized the white perimeter as our own” (34). When looking through books at a used book store, I look through each copy of the same book they have on the shelves and will choose the one that has an empty “white perimeter.” I want every thought and Idea to come from me, and only me. Having someone else’s markings marring the pages takes away the fun of discovery.
Woods, L 2
For most of my life I have been a passive reader. As a young reader I only read books that I enjoyed, and I had adamantly felt that writing in a book was an act of utter sacrilege. To me, being forced to write my thoughts while reading was an interruption to the flow of the story. Marking down my reactions took me out of the story that I had immersed myself in. However, as I matured as a reader, I was forced to read books that I no longer chose, and no longer enjoyed. While reading the assigned readings, for the first time I was challenged. I faced more obscure ideas and more complex characters that I no longer wanted to root for. For example, while reading Catcher in the Rye, I ABHORED Holden Caulfield. I hated his guts, and was irritated by his whiny, childish hypocrisy. Never had I hated a fictional character that much. I found myself scribbling angry, mean comments all over his thoughts, saying “IDIOT” and “What a loser, shut up!!” As a mature reader, I find myself reading more challenging material, and feeling more of a need to pose questions, and make comments sloppily in the margins, with whatever writing utensil is closest at the time. Once I even used a crayon, as I was very comfortably curled up under my blanket and it was the only thing within reach. While reading for pleasure, especially my more “fluffy” books, I find myself abandoning annotations, and simply immersing myself in the text. However when reading the more thought provoking texts I do see myself writing often furious and passionate notes in the margins.
ReplyDeleteFor my summer reading, I had very different styles for each of the books. For example, in Notes From the Underground, I was often writing very aggressive and angry notes about the Underground Man that I am not necessarily proud of. For On Writing, I underlined and stared passages I found important and tried to bracket parts that I thought encompassed King’s main point. For A Picture of Dorian Grey I typically wrote “OMG” and “Holy Crap what a lunatic”, and the occasional “WTF why did he just murder that dude”. As for All the Pretty Horses I just wrote a lot of “kill me now’s”. My annotations are usually my honest reactions, not usually commenting on specific literary devices. I find myself writing exactly how I thing or speak.
My favorite lines from Marginalia was the first one, “Sometimes the notes are ferocious, skirmishes against the author, raging along the borders of every page, in tiny black script.” This speaks to me because I feel it poetically describes exactly how I am as a reader. I find myself arguing with the author, fighting them, and getting angry. I am impassioned by characters and frustrated by them as much or more than I could be with a real person. I love the image that I create in my mind when Collins says “tiny black script”, because it feels so real and intellectual. This line is exactly how I feel I am as a reader just in a much more beautiful way than I could put it.
E. Florek 7/8
When I am reading, I generally speed through to the end of the book. I choose not to mark up my text because I feel that it inhibits my progress in ending the story. I do not enjoy stopping and starting when it comes to reading. I like to know exactly what is going on and quickly. I read the way I speak to audiences, without stopping to enunciate and expound upon background details. I may highlight and tweet a few of my favorite quotes or use them as descriptions in my Instagram photos, but for the most part, when I am reading; I keep my book and pens separate. Reading John Green or J. K. Rowling works is as close as I get to annotating when it is not required.
ReplyDeleteWhen marking up my summer reading, my goal was to do it quickly but in a way where I would not be confused if I went back to read. In Notes From the Underground, I put post it notes at the beginning of every chapter with a summary of the important parts and ideas within. With Steven King's annotations, I did not annotate much when he was describing his childhood and young adult experiences. I waited to annotate until he began sharing lessons about the art of writing. Once again, I used post it notes. When I saw a thought provoking quote, I highlighted it so that I could find it easily later if I wanted to use it as a tweet or within summer reading work.
"We did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
We pressed a thought into the wayside,
Planted an impression along the verge." This is my favorite quote because it compares the two different types of readers; the lazy ones and the ones who have a desire to understand. It shows how those who annotate, are doing more than simply skimming the text, they are attempting to break it down into something more personal or simply easier to understand.
K, Shumate 7/8
My annotations range from simply pointing out lines I viewed as comical, to long marginal paragraphs describing my view on a given motif. My comments alongside the text are often copious; my own writing repeatedly overlapping with the print. My footnotes are my thoughts in the immediate moment after I process a passage that I feel has meaning. I often point out figurative language, recurring themes, and significant allusions and historical parables. While my annotations can actually have literary merit, too often they are random thoughts or comments that I jot down while reading. These comments range from a simple “ha” to a more cynical “are you serious?” or “what the heck?” When dissecting a text, I use little symbols with a predetermined meaning, as to be more efficient in annotating. I use little markings that represent the various figurative language types, unique/intentional capitalization and punctuation, and significant changes in word order or syntax. Personally, I think that the most beautiful aspect of glossing over the text and stamping your own thoughts on the text is the personalization that it produces. Someone can pick up your copy of a book and they probably will not understand what your markings mean, they won’t see the thought process behind your own writing. But when you pick you the same book and review your commentary, the gears in your mind are awakened, and your thoughts resume.
ReplyDeleteThis year’s summer reading books are packed with content to be analyzed. My copies of the four books are teeming with my remarks and observations. The same system of symbols I described above is present in the margins and space between the texts. I use this system because of its simplicity; I can refer to these symbols so that I may save time and read more effectively. I also frequently jotted down rhetorical questions alongside the printed text. Considering that these texts would be analyzed in a classroom setting, these rhetorical questions would be helpful in that they remind me of questions and thoughts that I had while reading the text.
“Other comments are more offhand, dismissive — “Nonsense.” “Please!” “HA!!” — that
kind of thing.” (Collins 9-11) I enjoyed these lines from MARGINALIA the most because I can relate to them. I habitually write similar remarks in the margins of texts I am reading. I am aware that I am probably wasting my time in writing these comments; the author will never hear my casual (perhaps rude) comments, but I do it anyways.
Bruggeman J, 7/8th
I am somewhat passive when I read. I really only do it because we are told to do so. I feel like knowing that you have to mark up the book and look for certain contents, takes away from the connection and deepness that lies in the text. If I see quotes that stick out to me or signify an importance, I will be quick to underline it. Literary devices are usually not seen in my margins, along with chapter summaries, reason being that I get too lost in the book. I feel like an examination is better to be done once all the pages come to an ending. I enjoy having discussions with peers who read the text, so that this way our ideas can bounce off of each other.
ReplyDeleteFor the Summer Reading I tried to mark up as much as I could, without loosing the journey that a book takes one into. Reason being that I thought the teacher was going to check our annotations like last years was. Also, marking questions and sentences that do not make sense, so that later the questions can be answered. I really enjoy quotes that can relate to modern day society such as, "Behind every exquisite thingthat existed, there was something tragic" (Wilde 37). Having these phrases that jump out at the reader and stick in the mind is what makes the text even more special and easier to comprehend.
In Marginalia, poet Billy Collins says a line that goes, "Students are more modest needing to leave only their splayed footprints along the shore of the page. One scrawls “Metaphor” next to a stanza of Eliot’s. Another notes the presence of “Irony” fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal." (Paragraph3) because notice how it says 'students' and they seem to only be realizing the contents that they are supposed to find and write. They are being blinded to the rest of the novel and I feel teachers should just make it required for each individual to annotate what pops out to them.
Asturi V, 7/8th
Unlike most readers, I find it incredibly difficult to write in novels. I can interpret the text just fine, I can connect the text to previously read texts and I can identify symbols, allusions, and so much more, yet I cannot find a single thing to write about in the margins of my books. For some reason it just does not come to me. Not that I find it wasteful to write or highlight in novels, I simply find it to be unnecessary. While reading a book, I feel that I won’t be ever come back to that page to review what I had written. Although I know I will see it again, it still feels so silly to write something that may not make sense later on. Occasionally, I will highlight a line or write a question mark next to something I don’t understand, but more often than anything else I will dog-ear a page that I find to bear a significant quote. When I get in the right mood, I use post-it notes like there’s no tomorrow. In my mind, writing on something that will stick out of the book makes more sense than writing on a page that already blends in with everything else. When I read, I am very passive—I don’t think too much about deeper meanings or try to analyze a whole passage. I save that part for after I’ve viewed the whole picture. I like to read the entire book before I pick it apart.
ReplyDeleteIn my summer reading books, I did very little marking. All of my markings were in King’s memoir because he had so much to say. I recall highlighting some quotes here and there that really spoke to me. In Dostoevsky’s novel, I may have only underlined two or three quotes throughout the entire text. There were only a few instances when I came across a quote that I deemed significant enough to earn a highlight or an underline. I find it more difficult to annotate books that are required for school as I see the annotating to come more as a pressured action rather than a natural action. I feel like I have to annotate, whereas in novels I read on my own time, it’s easier for me to make connections and annotations. With that being said, my summer reading books are practically empty. King spoke to me much more than Dostoevsky did, but still not enough to earn a true set of annotations.
After having read along with Billy Collins’ “Marginalia,” I noticed one quote that truly stood out to me. The quote which reads, “And I cannot tell you how vastly my loneliness was deepened, how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed, when I found on one page a few greasy smears and next to them written in soft pencil – by a beautiful girl, I could tell, whom I would never meet – “Pardon the egg salad stains, but I’m in love,”” is truly my favorite. This quote flows so beautifully and the simplicity of it brings out the deep expression inside of it. I can picture this boy around my age opening up Catcher in the Rye and cracking a tiny smile as he reads over those nine words. It’s an implication that the smallest thing could mean so much.
Cruse, S 2