In this course I have learned the importance of critical reading, which is something I have always struggled with. I learned several different techniques that allowed me to achieve this level of reading. One of the ones that helped me most was annotating with sticky notes, just to make sure that I understand the basics of what the material is saying. To dive deeper into critical thinking, I used color coding mechanisms to organize claims, evidence, questions, and structural pieces. As Susan Gilroy states in her work Interrogating Texts: 6 Reading Habits to Develop in Your First Year at Harvard, summarizing can be useful, but analyzing adds a deeper evaluation. I tried to pair both summarizing (with sticky notes) and analyzing (with color coded notes) when annotating pieces. One example of this can be seen in my annotations on the article Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? by Jean M. Twenge.

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One-sentence summaries of each paragraph can be seen on the sticky notes, and color-coded notes can be seen written in throughout the article. Green represented structure, meaning that any notes written in green were to identify the structure of the article rather than the content itself. I used purple to underline anything I identified as a claim, and blue to underline any evidence that supported those claims. Lastly, I used pink to write in any questions that I had about the article. I believe that this incorporation of questioning the article is a good example of “interrogating the text” as Gilroy states. This method of annotating allowed me to gain a better understanding of the text, therefore making it much easier to use this piece as a source for my essay later on. I have grown so much in this area, considering that before this course, the only method of annotating that I knew how to do was highlighting.