Manley Career Academy

1. Manley Career Academy Organizing for Learning: Two Column Notes

2. Why Two-Column Notes • Can take on a variety forms (Flexible) • Addresses more than one main idea type • Applicable for all content areas • Allows students to make choices • Meets special education needs (Visual Perception difficulties)

3. Development of Personal Systems(Paris, Wasik, and Turner, 1991; Duke and Pearson, 2002) • Good Readers know how to use different systems and know which strategies produce the most effective reading. • Poor Readers are far more rigid, sidestepping challenging reading because they don’t know what to do.

4. Development of Personal Systems(Paris, Wasik, and Turner, 1991; Duke and Pearson, 2002) • Experience different ways to organize • Write about information • Have an awareness of the author’s purpose and style of writing • Facilitate Self-Monitoring • Provide Flexibility

5. Organizational Scheme Depends upon their learning goals and how the author crafted the piece • Well-structured Expository text Two-Column Notes • Less obvious structured text Concept Mapping

6. Type of Strategy Depends on how an author has presented the information • Problem-Solution • Cause and Effect • Chronology of Events • Series of Comparisons • Propositions and Supportive Information

7. Two-Column Notes • Variety of Formats depending on subject area, instructional goals, and the nature of the text • Main idea-detail notes • Opinion-proof • Hypothesis-proof • Problem-solution • Process Notes

8. Two-Column Note-taking

9. Main Idea-Detail Notes • Help students organize main ideas and details from subject area reading assignments • Students divide their papers into two columns and record main idea in the left and details on the right. • Main points can be in the form of questions or as key words. • They use their notes as a study guide

10. Main Idea-Detail Notes

11. Main Idea-Detail Notes(Power Structures) Topic: Protists

12. Main Idea-Detail Notes(Reading Logs) Question Log ~ During Reading

13. Main Idea-Detail Notes Add a third column for memory cues, pictures, notes from films and/or class discussions which relate to ideas in the left column

14. Conclusion-Support Notes • Students develop and support arguments with evidence • Stresses critical thinking skills with both expository and narrative text • Students write their thesis or conclusion in the left-hand column and record evidence from their reading on the right • Students use their notes to develop persuasive written arguments

15. Conclusion-Support Notes

16. Proposition-Support Outline

17. Opinion-Proof Notes • Two-column format where students learn how to develop and support arguments with evidence (Santa, Dailey, Nelson, 1985). • Opinion proof stresses critical thinking skills with both expository and narrative text. • Students write down their thesis or opinion in the left column and use the space on the right-hand column for recording evidence.

18. Social Studies Opinion-Proof

19. Hypothesis-Proof Notes • Help students begin to think like a researcher. Integral to teaching the research process is analyzing written materials according to theoretical assumptions and evidence (Harrison, 1991).

20. Hypothesis-Proof Notes

21. Problem-Solution • Organized so students list four questions in the left-hand column • Answers to those questions are recorded on the right portion of the page. • Provides students with a guide for thinking and writing about issues in novels and in content subjects

22. Problem-Solution

23. Process Notes • Student work through the steps of problem solving in mathematics and in conducting scientific experiments. • Students write the steps for problem solving in the left-hand column and information from the story problem in the right.

24. Process Notes A boat sailed 750 miles from Vancouver to San Francisco, another 412 miles to Los Angles and on to Panama 3,000 miles away. What was the total length of its journey?

25. Initial Step • Teach students to recognize the seven most common organizational patterns as identified in the work of Marzano et al. (1997) and Jones, Palincsar, Ogle, and Carr (1987). 

26. Organization of Information • Chronological sequence: organizes ideas and information in the time sequence that events occurred ( Event Mapping, Academic Notes) • Compare and contrast: organizes information on a topic in terms of similarities and differences (Compare and Contrast, Comparison Notes) • Concept / definition: organized by beginning with a general idea of a person, place, thing, event, or abstraction and then delineates its elements, characteristics, and/or examples (Classification Notes, Main Idea Notes, Metaphor Analysis) • Description: this pattern paints a word picture of a person, place, thing, or event; the facts and details do not have to be given in any particular order • Episode: this pattern organizes a large amount of information about an event or time period; it may include: specific times and places, people involved, sequence of events and their possible causes and consequences ( Interactive Notes, Event Mapping) • Generalization: general statements are supported with specific details or examples (Pyramid Notes, Academic Notes, Classification Notes, Cornell Notes, Inductive Main Idea) • Process/cause-effect: tracks a series of steps leading to an outcome or product; or explains a causal sequence (Cause and Effect, Process Notes)

27. Introduction, Modeling and Reflection • Make a transparency of a selection and demonstrate how to underline key points. Photocopy the selection for the students to underline and make marginal notes as you model.

28. Introduction, Modeling and Reflection • Preview the assignment. Read the introduction and bold print headings, examine visuals, and read the summary and end-of-chapter questions. Brainstorm background knowledge and develop a purpose for reading. “Why do you think the author wrote this selection?” What do you think his or her big idea could be?”

29. Introduction, Modeling and Reflection • Use the author’s clues to main ideas to develop two-column notes. • For example, the author developed main ideas through bold print and rhetorical questions.

30. Introduction, Modeling and Reflection • Model how to convert clues to notes. Together, develop the notes on the transparency while students write down their own notes. Talk about how to abbreviate the questions and key points. “Do not use complete sentences in your notes.” • Model how to include main ideas and vocabulary essential to content in the left column • In the right column, record information that elaborates the main points.

31. Introduction, Modeling and Reflection • Demonstrate how to use the notes for self-testing and for reviewing information • Show students how to cover the right-hand column with a sheet of paper. • Ask students to work in pairs or alone to test themselves.

32. Introduction, Modeling and Reflection • Challenge students to study before the test no more than 12 minutes • Talk about how frequent, brief study sessions tend to clinch information in memory better than longer, less intense sessions.

33. Introduction, Modeling and Reflection • Plan the test together • Give students the test • After the test, allow time for a process conference to help students begin to internalize study strategies

34. Introduction, Modeling and Reflection As part of the discussion, list the strategies. • We previewed the material and thought about what we already knew about the topic. • We came up with several big ideas or purposes for reading.

35. Introduction, Modeling and Reflection • We figured out how the author presented main ideas. • We summarized the main ideas and details in two-column notes. • We studied our notes by testing ourselves • We predicted the types of questions that would probably be asked on the test.

36. Introduction, Modeling and Reflection • After listing the steps, continue your discussion. “The next time you study for a test, what are you going to do to learn the material?” • Talk about these strategies as working for practically any content material.

37. Support and Extensions • Continue modeling throughout the year. • In content subjects, students will always need help distinguishing important information from unimportant information. • Begin to write down less information allowing students to fill in more of the details.

38. Final Thoughts • Two-Column notes allow readers to glean main points and details from their reading assignments • Students need to organize information from their reading and apply this knowledge • Students who understand main idea and details are able to think critically about their reading

39. Final Thoughts • As always, it is crucial that graphic organizers be used as a form of scaffolding to reach a goal that goes beyond the organizer itself; the goal might be a piece of writing, preparation for a discussion or Socratic seminar, etc.  We need to be explicitabout the fact that using these tools will train our minds to automatically recognize text structures and organize information while reading, even when we are not using a graphic organizer.  In short, it is a way to become a more skilled reader of informational texts, something we all grapple with in this age of information!