Anchor Texts: Annotations from Chapter Three of 'The Street' by Ann Petry

I love making text-to-text connections while I read. Here are two passages I marked, which texts they are connected to, and a link to our video book club meetings.

Hey, Readers!

I don’t have time to record this as a podcast episode this weekend; nonetheless, I hope you’ll enjoy perusing two of my annotations from Chapter Three.

When I taught high schoolers how to annotate, especially in ninth grade remedial courses, I focused on three modes of connection they could underline and write about in their margins: text to self, text to text, and text to world. These connections aid comprehension AND I found them to be useful for breaking students out of the hunt for literary devices.

To this day, I find myself drawn to text to text connections as I read. Whenever a passage reminds me of another author, book, or even a Substack essay, I mark that reminder in the margins. Sometimes the reason behind my annotation escapes me; it’s just vibes. Sometimes I can remember a specific line, character, or theme from another book (and feel like my brain won trivia!). Sometimes I have to open the connected book in order to jog my memory.

While reading Chapter Three of The Street by Ann Petry, I had two text to text moments, and I thought it would be fun to share them with you today.