Lesson Name: Note Taking
Unit Context: Visit North America
Goal: Students will successfully take
notes from print resources.
Library Skill/Strands
Addressed:
·
Identifies
a variety of potential sources of information
·
Develops
and uses successful strategies for locating information
·
Selects
information appropriate to the problem or question at hand
·
Organizes
information for practical application
Technology Skill/Strands
Addressed:
Objectives:
·
Students
will extract information from a variety of sources.
·
Students
will write this information in a shortened note-taking format.
·
Students
will compile information from a variety of sources.
·
Students
will determine which information is relevant for the task at hand.
Time: 2 classes
Activities:
·
In
the library, librarian identifies for students potential print resources that
could be used to locate information on Canada and the United States. These would include sets of
"state" books, a previously "pulled" collection of
nonfiction "Canada" books, sets of encyclopedias and StateGrams.
·
As
students are working in pairs, each pair is given a “Presentation Research Sheet” handout as a
note-taking form and told that their State/Province must be listed on top along
with the number and topic of the Powerpoint slide that they will be taking
notes on. They are also reminded to
include bibliographic information for each source of information that they use.
·
Using
the StateGram on Mississippi, the librarian and technology teacher model
for students how they would work as a pair taking notes from this source about
the climate of Mississippi. One teacher reads the article aloud slowly stopping
often, while the other teacher writes down the notes. Students are told to watch for the following elements: 1. Pencils
down until it's time to write a note. 2. Reader reads "chunks" (a
sentence or two) -pair determines if anything important was read. 3. Keep it
short- no sentences, no small words (the, a, etc.), use commas, dashes, single
words. 4. No copying-use your own words. 5. Write what's important (relevant to
the task at hand).
·
After
modeling exercise, the notes are read aloud and students are asked how the
notes differ from the passage that was read.
Hopefully, items 3-5 above will be reiterated.
·
Students
are asked what would be the problem with including all of our notes on the
climate of Mississippi in a slide that was being created to try to encourage
people to visit this state. What parts
of our notes might we want to leave out if we were encouraging people to visit
(hot summer temps, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes)? What might be used as a selling point for visiting Mississippi
(mild winter temps, lots of lakes and rivers)?
·
Students
are reminded that since they are creating a slideshow that is designed to
encourage people to visit their state/province, they must continually stop and
ask themselves "Is what I'm putting in my slideshow something that will
make me want to visit this place?"
·
Students
are given time to begin taking notes with their partner, and are reminded to
use a different Presentation Research Sheet for each topic.
·
Students
are instructed to insert their note sheets into the print source. The teacher
then sets aside the pile of books/encyclopedias, etc. for use in a bibliography
lesson the following day.
Materials:
q
Assorted
sets of "state" books
q
Numerous
nonfiction books on Canada
q
World
Book Encyclopedias
q
StateGrams
q
Copies
of the “Presentation Research Sheet” handout