Color-Coded Highlighting System
Highlighting can be a useful tool to help students recall important information from their texts. A common problem with highlighting is that without a clear plan or organized system, the highlights can become a jumble of “important information” that is not only passively completed, but also difficult to sort through in the review process. Students often spend more time focusing on what is deemed important text rather than critically thinking about the content. Students should use a color-coded highlighting system to make the process active and purposeful. This system applies to all subjects and is an important strategy to use in AP test prep.
COLOR-CODED HIGHLIGHTING SYSTEM
“Graduate school requires a lot of reading. A lot. The amount you are thinking of right now, double it. Before every class session, I was asked to read at least three or four research articles and a couple chapters from the class reader. I also had to be prepared to discuss those readings with my peers while addressing difficult questions from professors who are experts in their field. Given that I was taking four classes at once, organization was key.
High school teachers are asking students to do similar work: read and interpret textbooks and novels, participate in class discussions, and support their answers with evidence from the required readings. Students must not only read the text, but they must also interact with it, as we spotlighted in our issue on Active Learning. In graduate work, I found highlighters to be an integral part of organization, especially when using specific colors to prompt engagement.”
-Adam Whistler, CEO & Founder
Highlighting is only one element of the annotating process and should be used in conjunction with note-taking and writing in the margins of the text. Using a color-coded system makes it easier to identify and assign meaning to specific types of text and student annotations. This highlighting system will not only improve your student’s learning but will also save them time for later studying.
This highlighting process should be used for both non-fiction passages (such as science or history) and literary analysis in essay writing. The approach will vary slightly between applications, but the same principles apply. Each color is assigned its own meaning to be easily identified in the passage. Students will need a yellow, pink, green, and blue highlighter for this method.
The specific color assignments mentioned below can be adapted to best help individual students interact with the text. Reflecting on personal learning habits, students should think about what color system will work best for their learning process. The key takeaway from this method is using colors consistently across classes to create one easy-to-use system.
Note: In general, we encourage students to place more emphasis on highlighting their personal annotations than the actual text itself. This is because student annotations not only make summaries and important information easily accessible in the margins, but they also provide personal insights that can prove helpful later during test prep or essay writing.
FINDING INFORMATION IN NON-FICTION PASSAGES
With non-fiction readings, the primary goal is to understand the presented information. Being able to recall this information easily by finding the important ideas (both in-text and annotated notes) should drive all highlights.
Color-coding for non-fiction passages should be used consistently and will help to reinforce the meaning behind each color:
Green - Use green for the main idea or big takeaways from the passage. The green highlight will often be a handwritten annotation because the main idea is rarely given succinctly in the text. This highlight should catch your attention because the color is found sparingly on the page.
Yellow - Use yellow to note vocabulary or definitions that are either presented in the text or need to be looked up. Write the found definitions in the margins and highlight them yellow as well.
Pink - Highlight questions that need to be answered in pink to signal “danger.” These will often be questions you yourself have written in the margins. Once you have answered a question, outline the original pink highlight in green to mark it “safe.” The answer to the question should also be placed in the margins nearby.
Blue - Use blue for paragraph or section sub-ideas to highlight more specific information throughout the passage. Blue should also be used to highlight any margin notes you’ve made to summarize a given section.
LITERARY ESSAY WRITING
The highlighting process can also be used for texts that will be referenced in essay writing. If you are able to highlight ideas and examples while reading, scanning through the text while researching for an essay will be easier. Highlighting text and annotations will be useful for noting themes, ideas, and direct quotes. Again, to better organize ideas and thoughts, more emphasis should be placed on highlighting annotations than the text itself.
The highlighter colors used for literary analysis do not mirror the non-fiction texts directly, but can be used similarly. Your highlighting should be guided by key themes and motifs in the text, as well as any essay prompts your teacher may have given you.
Coloring for literary analysis and essays is not as strict as non-fiction, but similar principles apply:
Green - Use green for the main idea or key themes, typically with a handwritten annotation.
Pink - Use pink to highlight any questions you may have. Refer back to these highlights in class to have these questions answered by teachers or peers.
Blue/ Yellow - Use blue and yellow for additional motifs or recurring ideas, including direct quotes and examples from the text. It is best to connect one color to a single motif, using the other color for a separate motif. Doing so will make it easy to find all the quotes for a particular motif you when you start writing your essay; you can simply flip through the book and look for that color.
WHY YOUR STUDENT SHOULD TRY OUR SYSTEM
This system is designed to be a tool for reading organization and makes the review process simpler. By doing this detailed work during their initial reading, your student will complete a large portion of their test or essay prep work early in the learning process. The highlighting system also provides flexibility in that it can be adjusted as needed to best fit individual needs and learning styles.
Student Action: Practice the color-coded highlighting method for one reading assignment this week.
Parent Action: Share this newsletter with your student and ask them to try the color-coded highlighting method.
FURTHER READING AND RESOURCES
“Highlighting.” University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: The Learning Center at UNC offers additional highlighting strategies to employ while reading.
“Moving from the Old to the New: Research on Reading Comprehension Instruction.” American Educational Research Association: This literature review goes into detail about learning strategies for reading comprehension, including the effectiveness of highlighting or underlining when used in conjunction with other study strategies.