While "active reading" has been preached since day one, it is time to seriously start annotating a text, especially with plays and poetry quickly in our gun sights. . . .
Simply defined for our purpose, annotations are written clarifications of a line, word, or small excerpt of a literature which help in understanding the literal and figurative value of a text. With foreign words, allusions, archaic language, or just purely dense language -- our job is to get our hands dirty in finding the meaning; not to dismiss and keep reading on. In essence, we are translating the author's language into our modern language, into "laymen's terms."
In doing annotations, in the margins, or by writing them in a notebook, you'll really help make the literary piece more comprehensible.
Our book, if you've noticed with our stories today (Lawrence and Mukherjee), provides some very basic annotations. However, I'd like us to work on doing some longer annotations based on longer excerpts, especially if we have time in class as we discuss these two stories.
What to look for, what to annotate?
- Allusions: language that makes a reference to history, culture, etc.
- Archaic language and foreign terms
- "Thick language" (like Faulkner, or the beginning of "Odour...")
- words and phrases used unconventionally
-???
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