Why the First Skill I Teach is Annotation

The first six weeks of back-to-school are filled with getting to know students, testing, and figuring out our classroom routines. When we get into the second marking period, I always notice a shift in how my classroom does its business. There is a movement from the “getting to know you phase” to the “we can finally start learning and growing phase” each year. This phase takes place right around the six-week mark and involves focusing more on content than on routines and expectations. I look forward to this transition each year. I want to take a moment to pause and acknowledge the first skill that I teach students every school year is always the same: annotation in reading. I use non-fiction reading to implement this strategy because it establishes a routine for the rest of the year when we encounter a nonfiction text, and it transitions nicely to when we are dealing with larger works of fiction. In the past, I have done Article of the Week from Kelly Gallagher to teach annotation skills, but I am finding that online learning is causing me to adapt to a new way to teach annotation while online. Annotation is a brand new skill for middle-schoolers. In this post, I will outline how I go about teaching annotation skills, providing purpose for annotation, and how to keep mixing it up to keep kids interested.