Grace Frohock
Learning Outcome 3
When I annotated David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster” I approached the reading by summarizing every page or paragraph, writing questions and comments in the margin, and underlining important sentences or ideas. Susan Gilroy suggests recording what your first encounter with the reading was like. On page 500 of “Consider the Lobster” I demonstrated this by writing on the bottom of the page what my observations about Wallace were and his ideas. I wrote “Observations: David Foster Wallace definitely does not like the Maine Lobster Fair because he describes it horrifically and he is disgusted by it”. Gilroy also suggests creating a “dialogue” with the author by writing down questions in the margin. This will help you get inside the author’s brain figure out what he is saying and why he is saying it. On page 506 of “Consider the Lobster” I wrote down 2 questions to help me create a dialogue with Wallace, “Is there a deeper meaning behind the reality of killing lobsters?”, and “Is there a humane way of killing lobsters?” Gilroy also suggests writing a summary of a paragraph or page from the text. She explains that it will help find the “structure” of the article and when you go back to the text you don’t have to re-read the whole article. On page 508 of “Consider the Lobster” I demonstrated the summarizing technique when I wrote, “text is about the science + nervous system of lobster, using facts to show if lobsters feel pain or not, relating it back to morals and ethics.” In my annotated article of “Consider the Lobster,” I demonstrated key skills Gilroy discussed in her “Interrogating Texts: Research Guide”.
