Annotated Bibliographies

In their book, Strategies that Work, Harvey and Goudvis (2007) approached literacy as a skill of thinking. “Reading is thinking,” they declared, as they proceeded to develop and introduce strategies to enhance comprehension. Roberts and Billings (2008), in their research titled “Thinking is Literacy, and Literacy Thinking,” redefined the term “thinking” to be “the ability to successfully explain and manipulate complex systems” (p. 33). Comprehension is, simply put, the result of explaining and manipulating complex systems. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept that annotated bibliographies may, in fact, be a skill of thinking, and in the end, one of many strategies capable of strengthening comprehension skills. Through

The null hypothesis is that there will be no differences in reading comprehension between students who use learn to write an annotated bibliography as a learning strategy and those who do not. In their research, Roberts and Billings (2008) suggested that learners must learn to think (first) in order to comprehend (result of thinking). Roberts and Billings urged educators to “treat [thinking] as a fundamental literacy skill” (p. 33). Whether or not an annotated bibliography can be declared an effective fundamental literacy skill is ultimately the question this study aims to

The study outcome will determine to what extent, if any, student reading comprehension increases with the regular inclusion of annotated bibliographies as an effective strategy for content comprehension. Reiterating the null hypothesis, there will be no difference in reading comprehension between the control group and the subjects; moreover, without indication of increased comprehension, there will be no change in learner’s knowledge. The merit of the annotated bibliography as an effective learning strategy to increase reading comprehension relies on the evidence produced by the