For many of the readings in our Properties of Matter books, students are asked to complete C-notes. C-notes stands for Cornell Notes. (The originator of C-notes was a professor at Cornell University). C-notes are a process not a product. They are intended to deepen learning and understanding through repeated interaction with the subject matter. Teachers often provide the topic and the essential question for the notes which is written at the top of the paper. Students listen to a lecture, read an article, or watch a video and take some basic notes on the right hand side of the C-note paper. These notes should be written with bullet points with abbreviations and not in complete sentences. They should include the main ideas and vocabulary. Spaces should be left between main ideas, so that more notes can be added later. The next stage is to circle the key terms and vocabulary in the notes and either underline or highlight the main ideas. Students should review the notes and then develop questions that can be answered by the main ideas written in the notes. The questions are written on the left hand side of the paper. Usually I ask the students to wait until the next day in class to write the summary. For the summary students reflect on the essential question and write a topic sentence including ideas from the essential question. If the notes were taken effectively, the next few sentences of the summary can simply be answers to the questions on the left hand side. Now the notes are complete and can be used to study the content as students prepare for quizzes and tests. They can ask to be quizzed by a peer or adult or simply fold the paper and look at main ideas or questions to quiz themselves. If you’ve read closely, you notice that by the time they are done with the C-notes, students interact with their notes at least 4 times. It seems like an arduous process at first, but many students grow to realize that it is a really effective way to get information into their long term memory. The repeated exposure over time has been shown through memory research to increase learning. Here is a PDF of the C-note format. Here is a link to a C-note template so you can type C-notes on a computer or your iPad