Homework · Day 1

Article Annotation · Three-Colour Highlighting

Estimated time: 30 minutes Due: Before Day 2 Submit by: Email (button at bottom)

What you'll do tonight

  1. Find one English-language article (500–800 words). Suggestions: BBC News, The Guardian Long Read, National Geographic, Scientific American.
  2. Print it out or copy-paste into a doc you can annotate.
  3. Highlight with three colours: yellow for main ideas, green for examples, pink for key dates/names/numbers.
  4. Answer the four reflection questions below.
  5. Submit your answers (and a photo or screenshot of your annotated article if possible) by email.

Exercise 1 — Article details

  1. Article title:
  2. Source (publication):
  3. Approximate word count:
  4. One-sentence summary of what it's about:

Exercise 2 — What you highlighted

Pull out your highlights and list them here.

Yellow (main ideas) — list at least 3:

Green (examples) — list at least 3:

Pink (dates / names / numbers) — list at least 5:

Exercise 3 — Structure analysis

Look at the first three paragraphs of your article. For each, identify the purpose and any signal words.

ParagraphPurposeSignal word(s)
1
2
3

Exercise 4 — Self-test on skim vs scan

For each task, decide whether you'd skim or scan.

  1. Find the year an event happened. →
  2. Choose a heading for a paragraph. →
  3. Decide if a True/False statement matches the text. →
  4. Match a person's name to their opinion. →
  5. Get a rough idea of what the whole passage is about, before answering anything. →
  1. Scan — go straight to numbers.
  2. Skim — you need the gist of the paragraph.
  3. Scan — locate the keyword, then read that sentence carefully.
  4. Scan — find the name first.
  5. Skim — first read of the passage, always.

Rule of thumb: skim once, scan many times.

Free practice resources

Extra free practice for tonight — each link opens in a new tab. These are free online resources (no purchase needed); a few may ask you to create a free account.

Ready to submit?

Send your answers by email. If you can, attach a photo or PDF of your annotated article.