1.

In discussing annotations, point out that the goal is not to rewrite the entire text. The goal is to reduce the text to the main idea and a few essential supporting details. With uncomplicated material, it's possible to use the marginal annotations for exam reviews.

2.

With difficult material, annotation should always be preceded by underlining. This is particularly important if students are going to rely on the annotations for exam reviews. Underlining forces readers to decide what's essential material and what's not. At that point, readers are in a better position to take notes in the margins.

3.

Students often assume that paraphrasing is easy. It's not (or at least it's not for me). Accurate paraphrasing requires time and thought. This, however, is precisely what makes it valuable as a 1) learning tool, 2) memory aid, and 3) comprehension check. Students pondering what words they might use to replace the author's are automatically engaging in the kind of conscious cognitive processing that deepens their understanding or else tells them they haven't understood the material and need to reread it. Paraphrasing is exactly the kind of mental elaboration that books on memory encourage as a way of transferring new information from short-term into long-term memory.

4.

Encourage students to paraphrase chunks of words. You might do an in-class exercises where you supply one phrase and they supply the paraphrase, e.g.:

Original: The Secretary of State responded to the memo by saying ...
Paraphrase: In response to the memo, the Secretary of State said ...

5.

Spend some time going over the inaccurate choices found in the exercises on paraphrasing included in Reading for Thinking.

6.

Item 4 in Test 3 (pp. 85-88) is an even better and more obvious example of good and bad paraphrasing. Answer a is correct because it identifies "the most famous class-action" suit. Answer d, in contrast, comes close but manages to leave out key information about the NAACP's suit filed in the name of Linda Brown.

7.

I would give students an additional exercise with paraphrasing. See, for example, paraphrasing passages under Reading for Thinking: Additional Materials.