I don’t pay much attention to the statistics on my blog except to note what searches my blog pops up under (and then only because these make good blog entries). But I’m going to direct this blog specifically at the search results on my blog at the moment. Apparently the time has come when those new to teaching have realized that they have to teach an Annotated Bibliography. Sure, if we’ve had more than two years of college, we can create one, but how do you teach students to create an annotated bibliography? Let me see if I can address this question myself.

First, I like to break the actual teaching of the annotated bibliography up into several different days. Then, I focus on specific information that students need to know in order to create their annotated bibliography. The unit that I teach the Annotated Bibliography in usually lasts about 2 weeks, so I have four lessons to teach them in and two days that I devote to in class work. (This is not to say that you must spend six full hours working on the AB, just that you can utilize six classes.) I spend the first half of class going over specific aspects and then circulate through the class to make sure everybody is on track with the day’s lesson (granted, this is much easier in a computer classroom). Here’s the general layout by class period:

1. Formatting a Bibliography
   1. This is by far the easiest and at the same time the most complex. For this day, I return to the MLA handbook and review the Works Cited page format and the formats for specific forms of entries. I cover book, journal, magazine, newspaper and online sources first. Then, I find out if there are any other forms of citations that my students want to cover.
2. Annotating Sources
   1. This is one of the most important aspects of teaching an Annotated Bibliography that you can give your students. I assign them an article for homework (due this day) that we can annotate together in class. I ask them to make notes, as they read, of the topics of each paragraph and a brief note as to the overall idea for the article. Then, in class, we discuss the main points of each paragraph and create one sentence summaries for these paragraphs. When the class has agreed on the sentences for each paragraph, we create a two sentence summary of the article and assign it a specific audience.
3. Creating an Annotation
   1. Last semester, I was introduced to the idea of writing a rhetorical precis and have now incorporated that into the annotation section of my student’s papers. I like that format because it is strict enough that I don’t have to feel around with the content of my students’ bibliographies. This allows me to look at the specific content contained in the annotation and grade it on that.
      1. Whatever style you choose, make sure that you are clear with your students about order and information to include. If you are not clear, the annotations look haphazardly written.
   2. Using the article annotated in our previous class meeting, I walk my students step by step through the creation of their annotation (I do not call the form a “rhetorical precis” because it confuses students who can only focus on creating an “annotation”). We write, as a class, each sentence for the article. This allows me to aid them in understanding the importance of word choice, structure, etc.
4. Creating a Judgment Statement
   1. Some instructors do not include the judgment statement in their students’ annotations, but I feel it is imperative that students learn to judge sources in relation to their own writing. Before this class, we will have discussed evaluating websites, searching online to find the credibility of ambiguous authors and the criteria that create a useful article in a research paper. So, during this class, we sit down and return to their class article, examine the author’s ethos, source of the publication and make a judgment on whether we would use that source in consideration of our topic.
   2. Once we have established whether we would use the source, we discuss why. Then, I have them create a judgment statement that includes the author’s ethos, credibility of the source, and specific reason why (or why not) they would use the source in the essay.
   3. For example, my students’ sentences might look like this:

Though Palmer is a known columnist at the Daily Planet, his article is largely based upon misrepresented and uncited sources, thus leading me to decide against using his article in my essay.

Brown’s background as a copyright activist along with the article’s publication in the Wall Street Journal, supports my decision to use his facts about Napster in my essay on copyright infringement.

Once I have gotten my students through this much of their annotations, I feel that they have all the information they need to successfully write their Annotated Bibliography. I then provide them with two in-class writing workshops where I help them individually to finish their work. This gives me the chance to look at nearly completed ABs and aid students in correcting specific aspects of their work.

Hope this helps! If you see anything that I’m missing or that you would like to add, feel free to comment. I’ll be updating all entries in the next few weeks and I’ll be happy to hear suggestions.