Note Taking Strategies

Ben Wong
 ● Abbreviations
Strategies ● Summaries
● Guided Notes
Enhancements to Learning
● Impose structure
● Provides students with an encoding function and helps
students process information
● Serves as storage for information not yet committed to
memory
● Increased academic achievement
● Postsecondary education readiness
Key 30: Using Abbreviations
● Assists students who cannot write fast enough to
follow the pace of lectures
● Teach students to utilize general rules to abbreviating
● Include explanations of abbreviations, as needed
● Drawing a connection between “text-speak” and
abbreviations in note-taking
● Decreased frustration and improved retention
Key 31: Summarizing
● Students learn to distinguish essential from inessential
information
● Enhanced reasoning skills
● Improved memory/recall of information
● Reduced frustration
● Increased motivation
Key 31: Summarizing
● Recommended steps for teaching summarizing to students
with exceptional learning needs:
○ Select a topic sentence, or invent a topic sentence, as
needed.
○ Disregard examples, unimportant details, and/or repetitive
material
○ Substitute a superordinate concept for a group of items or
actions
○ Condense and combine main ideas
Key 33: Using Guided Notes
● Outlines of main ideas with blank spaces for supporting
details
● Benefits all students, regardless of cognitive deficiencies
● Optimal outcomes when reviewed daily
● Ensures only essential information is transcribed
● Increased attention and engagement
● Greater understanding and comprehension of content
 Our Lesson
Objective
Students will be able to analyze and discuss
Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Cask of Amontillado” by
evaluating the main points of the story and
establishing an opinion of the main character,
Montressor.
Standard
9-10.SL.1: Initiate and participate effectively in a
range of collaborative discussions (one‐on‐ one,
in groups, and teacher‐led) with diverse partners
on grades 9–10 topics, texts, and issues, building
on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly
and persuasively.
 Abbreviation Examples Key
Abbreviation with Symbols Abbreviation with Letters

And & With w/

At @ Without w/o
Causes → That is i.e.
Results from ← Because b/c
Less than < For example e.g.
Greater than >
Conservation of Vowels

Government gvmt
Emancipation emncption
Welcome to class!
Please copy the paragraph in the green
box using your note taking
abbreviations.
Suggested abbreviations:
“He had a weak point — this Fortunato —
Fortunato F
although in other regards he was a man to
Although altho be respected and even feared. He prided
Italians Ital himself on his connoisseurship in wine.
Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit.
Americans Amer
For the most part their enthusiasm is
British Br adopted to suit the time and opportunity
Connoisseurship cnsrshp — to practice imposture upon the British
and Austrian millionaires.”
(Don’t forget to write your key!)
 Tips for Summarizing
● Highlight the main message or idea and
ignore extraneous details that could logically
be supposed
● Identify the information that supports this
point
● Include key information such as names,
dates, or actions
The Cask of Amontillado
Please follow along with the
read-aloud by completing the
story handout.
 Is Montresor’s decision to
murder Fortunato justified?
References
Gore, M. C. (2010). Increasing Learning by Using Note Taking Strategies. Inclusion Strategies for
Secondary Classrooms: Keys for Struggling Learners (2nd edition) (pp. 87-103). Corwin.

“The Cask of Amontillado” (1846). (2020). Sparknotes. Retrieved from

https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/poestories/section11/