The Digital Pencil Project: Annotating Electronically in the Middle Grades

Annotation is a recommended strategy for supporting comprehension and developing metacognition while reading, but now that we are digitizing, archiving, and sharing texts by way of course management sites and mobile technologies, we need new methods for marking text. So, “what’s next” in annotation? How do we introduce and promote digital annotation in the middle grades? In response to these questions, a sixth-grade teacher implemented a four-week unit in which she and her students read, annotated, and responded to short story PDFs on iPads. This article summarizes insights and implications resulting from this pilot project.