Why Annotate? LEARN: Marginal Syllabus 2019-2020

Marking up a “text” is an act of love because of one’s commitment to stay in relationship with the creator and other readers and observers.—Michelle King, Love Activist and Marginal Syllabus team member

This year’s Marginal Syllabus, titled Literacy, Equity + Remarkable Notes = LEARN: Marginal Syllabus 2019-2020 is kicking off November 4, 2019.

LEARN invites connected learners interested in equity—including educators from K-12 and higher education, formal and informal settings, and in- and out-of-school contexts—to read and annotate online texts, collaborate in the margins of texts with other readers and partner authors, and engage throughout 2019-20 in eight public conversations about equity in learning and literacy.

Now in its third year, LEARN: Marginal Syllabus 2019-20 is a collaborative project of the National Writing Project (NWP), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and Marginal Syllabus.

Thank you to the partner authors whose texts are included in the 2019-20 syllabus. Our sincere thanks to:

• • November: Samuel Tanner
  • December: Mario Worlds and Cody Miller
  • January: Alex Corbitt
  • February: Vaughn Watson and Alecia Beymer
  • March: Ashley Boyd and Jacinda Miller
  • April: Sakeena Everett
  • May: Sophia Sarigianides
  • June: Lamar L. Johnson

Why Annotate?

Michelle King of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project explores the “whys” of annotation and how a project like the Marginal Syllabus creates an equity ecology. She reminds us that to annotate is to observe, remark, and/or note down. More importantly, it is our right and responsibility to make our marks on the world around us in a way that enables creative and critical learning.

Joe Dillon from the Denver Writing Project reviews the publicly accessible multimedia resources gathered via the 2018-19 LEARN: Marginal Syllabus and encourages us to consider how these can be remixed, reconsidered, and revisited into diverse K-12 and higher education learning contexts to explore issues of literacy and equity.

Tapping into the “Geeky Book Club”

Designed as a “geeky book club” to foster equity-oriented learning for educators, the Marginal Syllabus uses the web annotation platform Hypothesis to guide educators’ open and critical conversations about equity, literacy, and learning. With this year’s eight conversations we seek to surface a range of remarkable notes in the margins of these texts, while also centering our focus on topics and scholarship that often are on the margins of teaching and learning.

This year’s LEARN: Marginal Syllabus will start the first week of November 2019 and will run through June 2020.

• Each month, a new article will be posted online and a link to the annotatable text will be featured in this syllabus document.
• Related events happening that month will also be announced. Broadcasts will be aired here at Educator Innovator and via the National Writing Project’s podcast NWP Radio.
• On Twitter, follow @innovates_ed and #marginalsyllabus to keep abreast of these and other opportunities. NCTE will publicize each month’s event via INBOX, its member newsletter.
• We encourage your participation in the annotation conversation each month, and readings will remain online as openly accessible resources for ongoing reference, annotation, and discussion.
• We also encourage you to use these articles and the opportunity to annotate however it best works for you—organize a study group, invite a class of learners you are teaching, engage as an individual, or connect it to a meeting or course.

Looking forward to connecting with you there.