From Notes to Nuts

Note-taking: A Visual Approach

  1. Your group's task is to take notes that you will use in a research-based persuasive piece about the film X2: X-Men United.
  2. Your research question is: Thumbs up or thumbs down to the movie X2: X-Men United?
  3. Using the What I Know and What I Want to Learn portions (activates prior knowledge) of the Turning a Topic into a Thesis organizer, brainstorm topics that you would need to find information about in order to answer the research question.

Be sure to include Other as a topic to remind yourself that there may be aspects of the issue that you do not know about and that you need to be alert for them!

  1. Use the note-taking wheel organizer to color code each topic; each topic (including Other) should be assigned a different color highlighter. Be sure that each member of your group uses different designations.
  2. Read the article and highlight (according to your color-coding) the information you find about the different topics you have identified.
  3. Look at the rainbow which colors predominate? Which colors hardly appear or do not appear at all? What does this visual tell you about the information you have, the information you need? How helpful is the source?
  4. Cut out the various highlighted portions and arrange the colors in like piles.

 Synthesis: The Next Step: Creating Mixed Nuts

1. As a team, based on your research, choose an answer to the research question.

2.Next, choose one of your color pile for which you have information from all three articles. Use this pile to support one aspect of your group's answer to the question.  You should have three different colors representing the information from three different articles.

3.Discuss what is common knowledge to the three articles. Discuss the quantity and quality of evidence that you have. What information offers the best support? Says it the best? What is missing?

4.Remembering that this is your paper, not a cut and paste of what others have to say, what can you add to give this body of evidence your voice, your understanding? How will you arrange the information? What examples can you add? How can you elaborate upon this information? Can you make a comparison/contrast to another movie you've seen? 

5.Arrange the cut out material and paste the strips onto the blank sheet. Be sure to leave room to develop your voice. Write Example or Contrast to, General Knowledge, etc. to indicate where you make the material your own. Add transition words. Arrange your work in any logical way you wish in order to manipulate it into something of your own, different from that of other groups. (For our purposes, all highlighted material is direct quotation, and the documentation is indicated by different colors of sources.)

6.Evaluate your work. Finally, whose work is it? Who is in charge of the ideas? Who wrote more words, you or your sources? Have you created a rich mix of nuts? What is strong about your paragraph? What would make it more effective?

Developed by Carol H. Rohrbach  (2003)

                                                                                                                School District of Springfield Twp.

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