Active Reading

Did You Know?

A reproduction of a Gutenberg-era Press on display at the 
Printing History Museum in Lyon, France

Text annotation is not only something that modern readers do. This practice can be traced back as far as 1000 A.D. when religious leaders made annotations on works like the Torah. In addition, scribes, or record keepers, in the Middle Ages copied books by hand, making notes as they completed their tasks.

Once the printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1400’s, people began to own personal copies of the Bible and works of literature. Many of these new book owners continued the practice of annotating their texts to help them with their reading and to assist them with difficult-to-understand passages. Just think, when you annotate texts while you read, you are carrying on a tradition that is over a thousand years old!