How to annotate a poem in 7 easy-to-follow steps. Help your students get the most out of poetry with these practical tips. Use these classroom strategies for analyzing and annotating poetry.
What is an annotation?
Annotation is an active reading strategy for articles or textbooks. It means to add notes (an-NOTE-tate) to the text that you are reading, to offer explanation, comments, and/or opinions to the author’s words.
Annotating is a critical thinking skill that students will need, not only for AP courses but throughout their high school and college education. Some AP students might already be familiar with annotating text, which is often called, TPCASTT. This acronym stands for: title, paraphrase, connotation, attitude, shift, title (again), and theme. Students begin by looking at the title of the text to determine what they think it might be about and what it might literally mean. Lastly, they read the text and paraphrase the content.
Should all students learn to annotate poetry?
Yes! Annotating poems is not reserved for only high-achieving students, it can be beneficial to all students. Annotating poetry helps students pay careful attention to a poet’s words, it helps keep students engaged while they read, and reduces chances of unfocused reading, it also slows down student reading and helps students pay careful attention to, not only, structure but the nuances of poetic language. Annotating is close-and-critical reading at its very best!
How do I prepare my students to annotate poetry?
An important step in understanding poetry is knowing how to properly annotate. By annotating a poem, students can ensure that they understand what is happening in a poem after they have read it. As students annotate, they should note the poet’s main points, shifts in the tone or mood, the speaker’s point of view, thematic areas of focus, the structure of the poem, and their own thoughts as they read.
I model annotating poetry for several weeks before my AP12 students are ready to do this on their own. Furthermore, no matter the grade level, you must first teach students the nuances of poetic language BEFORE students attempt to annotate a poem.
Some students may want to color-code their annotations. I always like to encourage personalization for student annotations. However, you could set up a standard color-coding system for your class that dictates what each annotation color represents (like red is for figurative language, blue is for diction, and orange is for structure) and that might just help to streamline the grading of poetry annotations.
Follow these 7 steps to annotate any poem. These steps progress in difficulty and should be followed in the order given. While annotating, you may want to encourage students to circle and look up any words they do not readily know and add personal observations or talk-to-the-text notations in the margins.
7 Steps to Annotate a Poem:
1. Read the poem first without writing on it. And if students can, read the poem out loud. It is important to get an idea of the poem’s overall idea or theme.
2. Look at the structure. Is the poem an identifiable fixed form (such as a haiku, a sonnet, or a villanelle)? Free verse? Blank verse? Does the structure look antiquated form or more modern? Are there an equal number of lines and stanzas? Is there a rhyme scheme? Is it fixed or variable? Are any lines repeated? If so, why? Annotate for use of meter, line breaks, caesura, enjambment, or colons used for emphatic statements.
3. Focus on the speaker. Who is the speaker of the poem? What is the poem’s point of view? 1st person point of view uses the pronouns “I,” “me,” “we,” and “us.” In a poem, the first-person usage is especially powerful in sharing and relaying personal experiences that usually relate to a universal theme (i.e. beating the odds • beauty • coming of age • corruption • courage • effects of the past • faith • fall from grace • family • fate • fear • freedom • friendship • greed • love • manipulation • nature • need for change, etc.).
4. Distinguish between tone, mood, syntax, and diction. The main difference between the mood and the tone is that the poem’s tone is how the poet feels about what he or she is writing whereas the mood of a poem is how the poet makes the reader feel. Is the tone formal or informal? Is there inversion or juxtaposition? How about sound devices like assonance, consonance, alliteration, and onomatopoeia? Take note of the poem’s imagery. Imagery is the expression of all senses in the poem, not just visual elements. Are connotative words used to convey emotions or a particular response in the reader?
5. Identify literary devices. Look for figurative language like metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, understatement, synecdoche, apostrophe, metonymy. puns, idioms, and literary allusions.
6. Annotate for symbolism. Symbolism is the use of imagery to emphasize deeper meanings and emotions. Pay careful attention to colors, seasons, and light vs dark.
• Colors that are often used symbolically are: black can be used to represent death or evil; white can stand for life and purity; red can symbolize blood, passion, or even danger; purple is a royal color; yellow can stand for violence or decay, and blue often represents peacefulness and calm.
• Seasons represent a change in our lives and changes in our perspectives. Spring symbolizes new beginnings, renewal, and hope; whereas Fall can symbolize impending death and represent the inevitable changes we all face in life.
• Light and darkness are two very common symbols used in literature. Darkness is often used to convey negativity: evil, death, or the mysterious unknown. Light is used to convey something positive: goodness, life, or hope.
7. Identify irony and paradoxical language. Interpreting irony, sarcasm, and/or paradoxical language takes time and practice. Irony occurs when events turn out unexpectedly. There are three types of irony: situational, verbal, and dramatic. Whereas a paradox is the juxtaposition of a set of seemingly contradictory concepts that reveal a hidden and/or unexpected truth. A paradox may be hard to believe; it is a contradiction that resolves to reveal a deeper meaning behind a contradiction. Many students will need help identifying this category.
Annotating poetry can be very rewarding for both you and your students. Your approach can be an easy one or a very complex one. Your approach with your class is dependent on your students’ grade level, abilities, and how much preparatory work you put into making poetry annotations a success!
For FREE sample poetry annotations, please visit Annotations.