Varieties of Cornell Notes in a Middle School Social Studies classroom...

In my last teaching position, my school was focusing on common language and strategies across contents. Cornell Notes were the style of notes agreed upon by our school. I loved using them, but was just getting my toes wet. There are so many more ways to use them and in deeper capacity. One of our main goals was to introduce students to the structure

Here are some of the ways I incorporated this style of notes into my middle school classroom:

Research Notes: 

One of the skills heavily focused on in the middle school social studies curriculum was researching. In an attempt to encourage students to focus on one source/website and get as much information out as possible before moving on, we used one page of Cornell Notes per source. Students would fill out the bibliography information in the top margin, write their research question at the top of the notes, fill in information that helped them answer their question in the notes section, and reflected on how that source was helpful at the bottom of the page. This structure helped keep them focus and the reflection helped build their capacity for an annotated bibliography.

Current Event Stories:

When teaching students expectations at the beginning of the year, there can be a lot of scaffolding for any given reading and note-taking activity. I enjoyed using the Cornell Notes for Current Events. I would provide an Essential Question and would often start the year providing the headings, or chunking the article, for the notes section. Students would wrap up the article reading with a summary.

Video Notes:

Even media clips and short videos can create an opportunity to practice note-taking skills. Depending on the type of clip, the headings for the notes section can be added to guide students through the content. I enjoyed used these more than guided notes for media clips.