Setting up your Interactive Notebook
Purpose of your notebook! To allow you to keep all your work, notes, assignments/projects in one place. While there may be projects or assignments that I will give you that may not fit into the note book, most assignments will fit in here so that you will have a complete book of what you have completed this year! Also allows you to study the material so that you will be ready for your upcoming unit or final exam. Teaches you organization skills Allows students to show their creativity Great for student/parent/teacher conferences where you can easily show what you are working on.
Things you must have in every notebook unit! Title page. It must be colourful and be an expression of what you think the topic of the unit you are able to complete, is about. This page will also include a “table of contents” for the unit. Example: First unit is on citizenship. What does it mean to be an American? -symbols, famous places, people, etc. Make it stand out! Vocabulary for the unit. Essential Question of the unit. What is the unit about? A concept web using the important terms in the unit to help you with understanding and make connections with the material. Source Analysis or unit cartoons or famous quotes. Important for helping you understand the information you are learning and to help you understand what you see in the media/real world on a daily basis. It is to help you think critically about the world around you so that you just don’t take things at face value. Current events assignments. These could be questions, research projects about current events in the news. Bellwork- These are important quotes that form an important idea about the course that you need to be familiar with. They will be part of the test and final exams and you need to be familiar with them. We will do them about once every other week. Articles or stories, “just the facts” stories that you will read and answer questions about what you are reading. Unit essay. A final writing or topic about the unit you just completed.
Interactive Notebook Rubric and syllabus. You will be given a scoring rubric and syllabus at the beginning of the school year (week one) which will detail how you will be graded this year and the rubric for the book will also be given out. Please place this rubric in your notebooks!
Material on the “Left” verses material on the “Right” When possible, assignments, including lesson notes or other hand- outs, will be placed on the “left” hand side of the page. The idea here is that what you place on the right hand side of your notebook will be your “reflections” on the materials that are handed out and the discussions that take place in class. This should also make it easier for you to find your assignments and for your teacher to be able to mark your work!
Some assignments may not be done in some units Some assignments may not be done in some units. Some things may be added to others! From time to time, there may not be a particular assignment listed above in this outline, that is completed in every single unit of the course. It is also possible that new assignments, depending on the nature of the material, ideas from you, the students, could be included. Table of Contents on your title page, should be kept up to date. To make sure that you have included all assignments completed in a unit, the table of contents, including the numbering of all pages, should be done regularly. This will help to insure that everything is accounted for. It also helps you be, and become more responsible for your own work!