Interactive Student Notebooks

Notebook Common Attributes

• Left-Side spiral bound

• Minimum of 100 sheets

• Three-hole punched

• Bring to every class

• Organizational pages

• Title and Unit pages

Title Pages

Unit Pages

Right Side Activities• Teacher Assigned Activities

• Title and Date for each activity

• Notes (discussion, teacher, collaborative, reading – SQ3R/KWL)

• Historical essays, directed personal responses, journaling, lab reports, self-assessments

• Unit standards and outcomes

Notebook Assignment: US Constitution Connections to Today

Find a newspaper article that describes an action carried out by one branch of the US Federal Government. Highlight the sentence or sentences you think relate to something you have learned in this unit. Paste it on the left side. Then, on the right side, write a summary of the article that includes:

1. a sentence that states whether the action was carried out by the legislative, executive, or judicial branch.

2. a description of the power(s) that the branch exercised.3. an explanation of how the power(s) could be checked by one

of the other two branches.4. writing that is free of spelling and grammatical errors.

Notes

Historical Essays

Left-Side Activities

• Time Out Activities are student created activities that are unassigned

• Graphic organizers, webs, Venn Diagrams, cartoons, maps, illustrated timelines, dictionary entries, equations, newspaper articles/research

• Use lots of color to illustrate

Mind Notes

Wordgrams

Point of View Drawings

Mind Notes

Mind

Notes

Point of View Cartoon

Illustrated Dictionary

Equations

Invitation

Map

Articles and research must be processed

• highlight important parts

• describe the connection

Evaluation CriteriaHow? Holistic, 6+1 Rubrics

How Often? 2-4 weeks or after each assignment

For What? Quality, completeness, presentation, organization

Who? Student self-assess and reflection; teacher

evaluation; parent evaluation

DATE OF EVALUATION: ______ Student Teacher Evaluation Evaluation Quality and Completeness

All class notes and right-side work are completed and high quality, even for days when you were absent

All left-side work is completed and of high quality 20 25 30 40 44 Needs Improvement Fair Good Excellent Visual Appearance and Organization

Left- and right-side work is organized and neat Effective highlighting and use of color

20 25 30 40 44 Needs Improvement Fair Good Excellent Extra Credit

Newspaper cutouts, drawings, graphics, or unassigned Personal responses

Other items 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 Needs Improvement Fair Good Excellent Student Comments Total Teacher Comments

Teacher Considerations• it takes about 7-12 minutes on average to evaluate each notebook (if checking at end of 3-5 weeks)• planning is essential before the year begins so that instruction in the first month includes a review of various ways to express and link concepts • give students time to evaluate others and to self-reflect (especially after their 1st check)• instruct students to skip 5 pages for the table of contents after they create their title page