We’re reading a couple of articles this week that are a little more dense than usual. As you work through them, make sure to annotate them. Your annotations might include underlines and highlights, definitions of unfamiliar words, marginal notes about how the text relates to something you’ve read elsewhere, or sometimes even just stars and question marks. I recommend Zotero for this, but you can use whatever system (digital or on paper) that works for you.

When you read an academic article, you don’t have to grasp it all the first time through! Annotations are a good way to help parse complicated arguments and scaffold the text for the next time you read it.

You don’t need to submit your annotations, but you should come to class prepared to discuss the text. Be ready to talk about at least two or three observations or questions you have about the texts. If conversation lags about a reading, I might ask you to share one of your annotations.