Third Reading: Text-Dependent Questioning Read the essay again and respond to the text-dependent questions. • As your class discusses the text, annotate the essay by writing responses to the questions in the margins. Highlight or underline text evidence that supports your . During discussions, you may also want to annotate the text to record a new or different meaning of the text. answer. Background Information: Anna Quindlen is an American author, journalist, and opinion columnist whose New York Times column Public and Private won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1992. In this essay, written on September 26, 2001, two weeks after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, Quindlen explores the "improbable idea" that is America.