Monday, April 25, 2005

Teaching Annotation

Today in class we reviewed the basics of annotation writing. We started by looking at a student sample on the overhead and discussing what the strengths were. (Click here for the student sample audio file.) We then did an activity that provided students with the opportunity to practice evaluation, which seemed to be the biggest problem most students had in the first draft of their annotated bibliographies. We first reviewed the content and writing style of annotated bibliographies (see Annotated Bibliography link for the handout). Then we went over two handouts on criteria for evaluating sources (see Evaluating Sources and Critically Analyzing Information Sources for the handouts). (Click here for the annotation audio file.) After this, students divided into groups according to their interest in the topics of three articles I found for them to evaluate. These articles can be found at the following links - postdoc; fish and hearing; and bird infidelity. Students were asked to read and discuss the articles. When they were finished doing this, they were to then summarize and evaluate the articles according to the class discussions on annotations. When they were finished, spokespeople in the groups orally presented the article summary and evaluation. Students in the other groups were asked to listen carefully to the presentations and report what and how the group evaluated the article. (Click here for the activity audio file.)

Annotated Bibliography Assignment Description -
Students are asked to write an annotated bibliography entry for each of the articles chosen earlier in the quarter for a total of five different entries. Each annotation should consist of a brief summary and a brief evaluative comment and should be preceded by full bibliographic information written in a documentation format accepted in the students' fields.

5 comments:

cherepaha said...

really nice job on this. I really like the way you integrated the sound. If I were really "mentoring" you, this would have been really helpful. I was just reading an article this afternoon by Charles Moran lamenting the split between oral and written literacy; this does an interesting job of putting them back together

Anonymous said...

Hi, great blog. Your summar regaridng our class is so good. However, the audio files don't work. Maybe it has some errors.
Anyway, your blog can you me a great help.
Have a nice day and good weekend.
(A lot of case reading on this weekend, including your huge homework^.^)

About Me said...

Thanks for your feedback and for your comments on my entries. These really help me to see other things that are going on.

It's also interesting to read the comments my students are making on the blogs. I'm now thinking about a creative way they can contribute with their comments. Any suggestions?

Anonymous said...

I sometimes use this site. Because Your bog has some useful link for English Writing.

We have a lot of snow. However, snow cann't help enjoying my life.

Have a good weekend. And See you on Thuesday.

cherepaha said...

One thing that would be interesting is that you can use one of the tools like blog this to integrate the students' blogs into your own and then may be you can comment on what they are saying as well as what you are doing. I think there must be a way of integrating your comments into theirs. This would be an interesting exericise in development meta-cognitive development