This week, I bring Annotation Bingo to several of my classes. The active participation that comes with effective note-taking will elevate – more than anything – student writing.  

A Note to My Students – This Is What You Need to Get Started:

•  Pull out your annotated research articles from your project folder/binder.
• Your annotations should provide you with more than the surface meaning of the articles you read.
•  Look for certain elements or themes or patterns or language you may have highlighted, underlined, starred, or circled.

Annotation Bingo will  help us identify and integrate key elements of our reading into research papers!  EVERYBODY WINS!

Below, I provide a Sample Card – and a Sample Bingo:

Jay’s Sixties History Annotation Bingo

Summarize a passage:	Literary device from the text & what it means ( metaphor, simile…”)	Unknown Word: ___________ What it means:	What I agree with in the text & why:	A question about the text:
Anything that affects you on a PERSONAL LEVEL:	What the text LEAVES OUT – Something is missing:	A question about the text:	What this text reminds me of:	GREAT QUOTATION:
What is the author's main idea?	Something you DISAGREE with!	Analysis of the TITLE:	PARAPHRASE the author:	Unknown Word: ___________ What it means:
CHARACTER ANALYSIS – Description of historic individual:	What I agree with in the text & why:	Literary device from the text & what it means:	What this text reminds me of:	What is the author’s main idea?
DEFINE an important term or phrase:	What this text reminds me of:	GREAT QUOTATION:	Literary device from the text & what it means:	Unknown Word: ___________ What it means:

This Is What You Do:

•  Now, can you match up your annotations with the bingo squares above?
•  Did you take the time to summarize an idea, a situation, a person, place, or thing in your notes?
•  Did you recognize the use of a literary device?  Like figurative language – metaphor, simile, personification?   Maybe you know about diction and dialogue?  Sensory details?
• I hope you explore the use of language in your reading – Do you remember when we defined a "community's soul?"  Like where did it go?  Did you underline any key vocabulary?
• I like annotating text that I AGREE with or DISAGREE with.  Either way, I feel more actively involved in the writing.  I look forward to sharing my own opinons and/or reflections. 
• Do you have questions for the text?  I hope so.  It might be boring if you didn't.
• For full credit, I expect to see each bingo square filled with appropriate information and/or commentary

Below is Jay's Winning BINGO Card for Amy Winehouse Research Paper — Death by Alcoholism

• This was for a previous class.  Amy wasn’t around in the sixties, but she served as an effective subject of a paper on mental illness – Addiction.
• That’s the sixties girl group the Ronettes on the left.  That’s Amy Winehouse on the right. Cleopatra eyes, tight dresses, and beehive hair-dos all the way across.
  

 

This Is What You Do:

•  Now, can you match up your annotations with the bingo squares below?
•  Did you take the time to summarize an idea, a situation, a person, place, or thing in your notes?
•  Did you recognize the use of a literary device?  Like figurative language – metaphor, simile, personification?   Maybe you know about diction and dialogue?  Sensory details?
• I hope you explore the use of language in your reading – Do you remember when we defined a "community's soul?"  Like where did it go?  Did you underline any key vocabulary?
• I like annotating text that I AGREE with or DISAGREE with.  Either way, I feel more actively involved in the writing.  I look forward to sharing my own opinons and/or reflections. 
• Do you have questions for the text?  I hope so.  It might be boring if you didn't.
• For full credit, I expect to see each bingo square filled with appropriate information and/or commentary
• For the first completed  Bingo card, I will award an all-expense paid trip to Starbucks.
• For the first Bingo, I will award a bag of Cheetohs.

This is going to be GREAT!  You will SEE.

Paz,

JL