Get your students to Deep Dive into Text TOGETHER!

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Get your students to Deep Dive into Text TOGETHER!

~ estimated 6-minute read ~

Have you tried it yet in your classroom? Social annotation?

If you haven’t heard about it, social annotation is the process of reading and thinking about a text either in a PDF, website, or online document, together with peers and then adding one's own thoughts, insights, perspective, understanding, and deep thinking by adding annotations to that text. What was traditionally seen as a solitary academic task has now become a social interaction that students engage in. The concept of social annotation adds just another dimension to traditional note-taking practices and has been proven to not only foster better comprehension, student engagement, and learning, but build community in your classroom. If you’re teaching online, this new addition to your online course is definitely a community builder!

In the secondary classroom, social annotation is becoming increasingly popular as it is an effective tool that achieves great results. As we know, traditional classroom practices emphasized student's individual learning, but social annotation encourages our students’ participation in a more supportive community of learners. Plus, social annotation allows students to express their own learning, share their feedback on their peers’ annotations, and engage in meaningful conversations about specific texts as they work alongside their peers.

One of the benefits of social annotation in the secondary classroom is the improvement of student engagement. Students are more likely to hold onto the information from your course’s readings when they engage in the text beyond their passive reading and individual thinking and consideration of the text. The collaboration and reflection that are encouraged in social annotation elevate their reading and more importantly, their comprehension of the reading far beyond purely a to-do practice. This social interaction of the text contributes to increased student investment and fruitful conversations about the text, especially when they are adding links, images, and videos to their annotations, which the social annotation tool, hypothes.is allows them to do.

The social nature of the annotation process also helps keep students motivated in completing class readings that you assign. And our gifted students may not be motivated to read beyond subject matter they already know, but when given the opportunity to engage with their peers socially in the text, they may be more apt to join in on the reading.

Additionally, our readers who may not like to read or feel that their reading level isn’t where it should be may push beyond their comfort zone to learn from and contribute with their peers. If we think about it, peers’ annotations on our text MAY actually help our struggling readers to comprehend the reading far better than if they read it on their own.

QuICKeR by Giulia Forsythe found at QuICKeR | framework for social annotation We have developed … | Flickr Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

What’s super powerful is that social annotation promotes student learning by recommending and providing an environment that encourages meaningful and authentic conversations about our course readings. Students are able to engage in more focused consideration or analyses of the text through their peer’s various perspectives and thought processes. Interacting with the text with their peers is a way for students to expand their knowledge and develop their thoughts in a meaningful context.

Basically, social annotation allows students to understand the text or their reading better. By physically engaging, (yep, your kinesthetic learners will LOVE it!) students can identify key themes, crucial points, and arguments within the text together with their peers, even though an annotation “debate” so to speak.

Students can also ask and answer questions about the text that are too complex or too challenging for solitary reading comprehension. Yes, annotations could be questions students have and ask their peers. In this way, students can reinforce their critical thinking and writing skills by reflecting on their peers’ annotations as well as their own.

What’s really cool is that annotations may help students process their thoughts and questions about the text in in the same way that journaling and diaries do. It can serve as a document of their learning and understanding of the text. More importantly, sharing their ideas, questions, and thoughts with their peers allows for a level of accountability not only of their reading and understanding, but also a “responsibility” to contribute to all’s learning in the classroom. So yes, not only does social annotation have many academic advantages, but it may also foster empathy which results in more meaningful engagement, metacognition, and reflection.

Lastly, social annotation offers a unique opportunity for students to express their learning openly while also providing feedback to their peers. Social annotation, initially, my put students in a vulnerable situation, especially if they are struggling readers, but very quickly, the support students feel when socially annotating with their peers dissolves that vulnerability away. Why? Because they soon develop a comfort which brings confidence instead of fear.

Students learn it’s okay to make corrections or clarify points made by others in the community, and over time, students learn from one another in a more organic and natural way. What I like about it most and what I’ve seen in the classroom is that social annotation makes reading and annotating more dynamic, which buys my students into doing it and completing it with effort and mindfulness.

It is my hope that social annotation fosters a life-long learning mission in my students.

Social annotation is much more than merely the act of reading and adding notes. It literally encourages active and collaborative engagement in learning, which makes the learning more meaningful and authentic, plus, student-created and driven!

Furthermore, with the ease of access to technology and collaboration tools online, social annotation is not challenging to implement on a practical level. I have found hypothes.is to be easy to use in getting social annotation moving and grooving in your classroom.

If all of this sounds perfect and what you want to do in your classroom, check out my Social Annotation with Hypothes.is–Engage Students as they Collaboratively Annotate Text video on my EdTechEnergy YouTube Channel. Plus, grab my 24-page Social Annotation Teacher Guide. And…don’t forget to subscribe! 😊

If you are seeking an active and engaging way to approach your content’s reading, social annotation should definitely be considered. Hands down, when social annotation is used in the classroom:

❃ Student engagement rises

❃ Students stay motivated to complete class readings

❃ Students engage in conversation with other students about specific texts

❃ Students share their thinking about the text with one another

❃ Students process their thoughts and questions about the text through their annotations that their peers can read and discuss in annotations

Please let me know if you try it and what the results were. I know it will be a WIN for you, your students, and their comprehension.