Bringing Context to Life: Annotating Research for Reading Novels

By Jeff Gandell, Dawson College

At a Glance

Discipline

Languages and Literature

Instructional Level

College & CEGEP

Course

Contemporary American Fiction

Tasks in Workflow

Social Plane(s)

Group

Type of Tasks

Solving problems
Reviewing & assessing peers
Creating & designing

Technical Details

Useful Technologies

Interactive whiteboards
Computers

Class size

Small (20-49)

Time

Single class period (< 90 mins)

Instructional Purpose

Application & knowledge building

Overview

In this activity, students learn to get the most out of a novel by looking up any references and/or words that they do not understand.

In groups, students read 1-2 pages (different pages for each group) from the novel and underline all the words/references (i.e. to popular culture, other books etc.) that they do not understand. They then look up a definition for each and pick one or two words/concepts that they want to focus on, providing some additional information. With this information, they create a short powerpoint to share with the class.

Once everyone is finished, students do a short gallery walk, looking at each other’s’ work. The presentations were then uploaded on the class website for students to use throughout the semester.

This activity can be done before this other one, so as to prepare students to be able to read the novel more in-depth.

Instructional Objectives

Students will be able to:

Identify unfamiliar words and look up their meaning
Recognize components and style of a novel

Workflow & Materials

Activity Workflow

View on CourseFlow

Contributor's Notes

Benefits

If done when students are just beginning to read a novel, it allows them to learn to search for things they do not understand and engage in a more thorough reading process;
This activity involves everyone in the search process, which then creates a tangible output that the instructor and other students can learn from and evaluate.

Challenges

Instead of conducting more in-depth research, students often used book-analysis websites.

Tips

This activity can also be a useful time to talk about citing sources;
To keep motivation, it could be useful to create a consolidation activity through the gallery walk, so that students continue engaging with each other’s work;
Encourage students to incorporate pictures – make it as user-friendly as possible, so each presentation can effectively be used as a tool throughout the semester.

Applied Strategies

Gallery Walk

Artifact creation, peer review and refinement

Feedback Cancel reply

Published: 29/01/2019

Copyright: © 2025 Gandell. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication on this website is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.