#2. Annotating

In AP Lang class, you will be annotating every piece of reading material. Hooray! Some of you may be dreading this, others may not care, but this is a critical skill that every AP Language student must possess. When annotating, you will have to look for various items, mostly being the main argument, rhetorical modes/devices, and the authors implicit/explicit argument. Knowing how to look for these things may seem challenging at first, but have no fear, they will become second nature to you with the amount of  practice you will be doing in and out of class. Being able annotate adequately is an important skill to have coming into AP Language class because it will allow you to understand the material with deeper meanings and interpretations.


Below, I have provided two pictures which demonstrate the change in my annotation skills from Freshman year (Image 1), following with a picture of my current annotation skills that I have learned in AP Lang class (image 2). 

(Image 1): Romeo and Juliet was the very first book I ever annotated freshman year. It is evident that I had very limited knowledge on annotating and for the most part, summarized the scenes instead of providing in depth analysis.

(Image 2): This is a speech by Nelson Mandela, that I had annotated on a word document. These annotations show that AP Lang class has clearly helped me with my annotating skills, and I am now able to annotate for important devices, rather than just summarize what the author is saying.