Dear Annotations,

You really are something, with all of your analytical madness, symbolism, and infinite imagery. Why must you keep us up for hours wondering how much deeper we can go into a paragraph, or how far between the lines that we can read? Why does everything we read have to be based on you? The simplest way to answer that is, you are conceited. News flash: not everyone wants to talk, write, or even think about you in the slightest way. In fact, I do not know a single soul that enjoys your company.

You honestly are no help to anyone. Instead of sitting down to enjoy a book normally, we are forced to focus on the deeper meaning, making the book uninteresting and a waste of time to our minds.

In fact, feedback from the Journalism Department at North Forsyth High School shows that students do not even find annotations helpful. According to Alex Rogers, a junior at NFHS, “Annotations ruin the ability to read books like a normal person, so any time I reach for a book I also reach for a highlighter and sticky notes, and I hate it.”  This means that learning to annotate hinders us as students from leisure reading.

So, annotations, what do you have to say for yourself? You have done nothing to improve the learning ability for the student body. All you have done for us is ruin our enjoyment for reading and destroy any interest that we might have for literature. Go away, forever.

Sincerely,

Kristin Iler