As a writer, you would think that while reading, it’s easy for me to formulate my thoughts on paper. However, my mind, like the minds of many others, stays like a blank canvas ready to paint a scene of whatever detail that is explained to me through a novel. There’s no room for writing when my mind is somewhere lost in between the lines of text forming a new world in my brain.

“The Book Thief” was one of the best books I was ever assigned to read for school. Though being one to read on my own time, the idea of an assignment – reading a book with annotations and writing an essay – was not my cup of tea.

Little did I know, by page 50, I was hooked.

Instinctively, my detailed annotations withered to a pointless underline here and there, simply due to the fear of someone grading how we annotated. I found myself getting so into the text that I felt no need for useless markings a teacher probably wouldn’t even look at.

Regardless of my lack of marks, I still received an A on the comprehension test we took on the first day of school.

It’s bad enough having to do summer reading projects and read novels for classes in between extra-curriculars, homework and jobs, but I personally think that less is gained from the work when the focus is strictly on annotating. It’s not uncommon to discuss the little details in a book and have a brain malfunction as to what the main character’s name even is.

But I guess that’s justified, given we now understand that the bedroom curtains were blue for a reason, and it wasn’t just a coincidence that he walked by a body of water on a Tuesday.

Some students even tend to think that teachers use annotations as a secret weapon to see who read the novel and who didn’t. Little do they know, annotations still will not force a person to read – they’ll just elicit a plethora of random underlines throughout the text, plus a few sassy comments and song lyrics written in the margins.

If annotating were left up to the individual reader, I would preferably keep my pages blank and my mind open.