Strategy 1: Annotating writing submissions
- Katrina Casey Kosyk, Miss
- Rachel Hall
- Donna Wong
Annotations are a way for students to show where and how they have addressed criteria in their assignments by using, for example, square brackets, highlights, and comments written in the margins. Students annotate their assignments prior to submission.
In this article:
Why have students annotate their work?
Annotating work prior to submission is a type of self-assessment that allows students to see the extent to which they are addressing assignment criteria before the instructor reads the submitted assignment and provides comments. This strategy promotes students’ active engagement with the assignment criteria—feed up—so that they are better positioned to succeed at the assignment.[1] Therefore, it is important to ask students to annotate features of writing that align with what you want them to learn from doing the assignment. Since annotations inform readers (i.e., instructors) about the writers’ (i.e., students) intentions, the annotations give you, the instructor, insight into students’ thinking. Your feed back comments on the annotations are a response to students that helps them readily see where they have succeeded and where they need to improve in order to meet the assignment criteria. In addition, the annotations can help you focus both your feed back and feed forward comments. Knowing what to focus on when assessing students’ work has the potential for saving you valuable marking time.
How can this strategy be implemented?
Explain to students what annotations are in the context of the assignment.
Show students several examples (in class and/or in myCourses) of annotated writing so that they understand what the assignment is and what your expectations are.
Ensure that students understand the features of the writing assignment that you are asking them to annotate. For example, if you ask students to underline the thesis statement, be sure they know what a thesis statement is.
Explain your rationale to students for asking them to annotate their writing, including how this assignment feeds forward with respect to fostering their ability to achieve learning outcomes.
Ask students to annotate all or some of the criteria you expect them to address in the assignment. Often, these criteria are listed in the assignment instructions.
Be explicit in the instructions about how you would like the annotations to appear, for example, as highlighted text, underlined text or written comments. (Your choices may be influenced by whether you ask for hard copy versus soft copy submissions.)
Optionally, have students practice annotating existing pieces of work in class (possibly in pairs) before submitting their own work; then, debrief as a whole group.
Have students submit their work on the due date with the annotations already completed.
Examples
We offer three examples of assignments that call for student annotations.
Research Paper
Instructions for students
In the right margin, explain the structure of your introduction.
Put square brackets around your thesis statement and write thesis statement in the right margin.
Circle the part of your thesis statement that lets readers know the main ideas you will address in your paper.
Put square brackets around any definitions and write definition in the right margin.
Within the body paragraphs, put square brackets around each sentence that introduces a main idea and write main idea in the right margin.
Put square brackets around every instance of support for your main ideas and write support in the right margin.
Example student submission
Lab report
Instructions for students*
You will write two lab reports this term to communicate your experimental findings. Each report should be organized according to the format of a scientific paper. Use the following section headings:
Abstract: Summarize the purpose, experimental method, major results, and general conclusion described in the report. The abstract should be a single paragraph (no more than 200 words) that stands alone as a summary of your experiments.
Introduction: Provide background and context for your experiments to help readers understand what you did and why.
Methods: Describe how you performed the experiments. Do not copy/paste protocols from the lab manual. Instead, briefly explain each procedure and highlight any relevant details that are specific to your experiment. Note any deviations from standard methods.
Results: Present your data in clearly labelled figures and tables, and describe what you observed.
Discussion and conclusions: Discuss what your results mean and what conclusions you have drawn from your data.
References: Cite any sources of data or information that are not your own, including primary literature and manufacturer (i.e., Invitrogen, Qiagen) protocols.
You will be working in pairs throughout the term. Although you and your lab partner will share raw data, the analyses and interpretation in your respective reports must be your own, independent work.
Annotate your report according to the following instructions:
In the abstract, put square brackets around each of the following sections and label them in the right margin:
Experimental method
Purpose of the experiment
Results
Conclusions
In the body of the report:
For each figure and table, highlight in yellow where in the report you refer to them.
Highlight in green your first in-text citation and write the citation style (e.g., ACS, CSE) in the margin.
Submit your annotated lab report on myCourses.
*Lab Report assignment instructions provided by Prof. S. Weber, Department of Biology, McGill University, and adapted with permission.
Example student submission
We use this sample lab report to illustrate annotations for a portion of the Lab Report assignment, namely, the abstract and the first few lines of the introduction.[2]
Position paper
Instructions for students
You are an Environment Canada research scientist investigating whether massive pesticide spraying to control the spruce budworm has been effective. You will be presenting a public statement to convince city officials to either maintain, modify, or stop current practices. Assume this statement will be shared at a hearing and that your audience will be made up of concerned citizens and city officials who are not necessarily familiar with the scientific literature on the topic. However, they will be very interested to know your perspective on the problem and potential courses of action for addressing the problem based on new evidence.
Choose five readings from among those in the course pack, supplemental course readings and readings mentioned during lectures/class discussions. Based on this literature, decide which position to support. Write a 750-word (typed, double-spaced) statement to either maintain, modify, or stop current courses of action. Submit your assignment on April 7.
Assignment criteria | Annotation instructions |
|---|---|
In your statement, provide: | Include the following annotations when you submit your assignment. Annotations can be hand-written or added using the “Comments” tool in Word. |
Provide support from the literature for your recommendations. Include a list of references following the APA style guide | Put square brackets around your:
In your statement (not in the list of references), highlight in yellow every instance of support from the literature for your recommendations. |
Variations
To illustrate the flexibility of this strategy, we offer variations for implementation.
Schedule two submission dates
On the first assignment due date, give students time to annotate their writing in class. If their annotations illustrate to themselves that they have met the assignment criteria, they can submit their work that day. If their annotations suggest to themselves that their work has not addressed all the criteria, provide a second due date to allow students time to improve their writing before you provide feed back and feed forward comments.
Annotate various features of writing
Various features of writing across assignments (e.g., research paper, lab report, reflection writing, blog post, position paper, policy brief, case study) can be annotated. The following examples, which are written as instructions for students, are organized according to three key considerations in academic writing: audience, purpose, and organization.[3] Since the features of writing that you ask students to annotate should align with the learning outcomes of a given assignment, the example instructions should be selected and adapted to suit your students’ learning context.
Audience
At the top of the page, write Audience, followed by who your target audience is (e.g., senior citizens, high school students, first-year PhD students, thesis committee).
Throughout your writing, circle the words or phrases that you specifically chose because they address your target audience.
Purpose
At the top of the page, write Purpose, followed by what you would like to accomplish with this piece of writing (e.g., inform or convince your audience of something).
Throughout your writing, highlight in yellow the words or phrases that you specifically chose to achieve this purpose.
Underline the purpose statement and label it in the right margin.
Underline the sentence that expresses your argument.
Highlight in yellow all instances of support for your argument and write “support” in the right margin next to each instance.
Put square brackets around each claim and its supporting evidence, and label each in the right margin (e.g., Claim 1, Claim 2).
Choose three of your instances of support and write in the right margin why you chose each one.
Organization
At the top of the page, indicate how you have organized your ideas, (e.g., causally, chronologically, thematically) and circle all words and phrases throughout your writing that signal this organization to your readers (e.g., for chronology: first, then, next, after that; for theme: adherents to this school of thought … adherents to another school of thought …, ... fall into different categories … in this category, this text addresses two different themes … in this first theme …).
Underline the sentence that lets readers know how the paper is structured and label it in the right margin (e.g., This paper begins with … after that, three examples are provided that illustrate … the paper concludes with recommendations …).
[1] Sheriff LeVan, K., & King, M. E. (2015). Built-in self-assessment: A case for annotation. Faculty Focus.
[2] Hamilton, A. (2009). Sample lab report: Perception of different sugars by blowflies.
[3] Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (2012). Academic writing for graduate students (3rd ed.). The University of Michigan Press.