Listening for Effective Note-making Lesson 2 Grade 9 Applied English
Critical Learning
•• Attending to spoken and nonverbal clues is essential for effective note making
•• Active listening improves note making
Curriculum Expectations
Expectations
Listening to Understand: Listen in order to understand and respond
appropriately in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes
1.1 identify the purpose(s) of a few different listening tasks
1.3 identify and use a few different listening comprehension strategies
before, during, and after listening to understand simple oral texts
identify the important information and ideas in simple oral texts
Reflecting on Oral Communication Skills and Strategies: Reflect
on and identify their strengths as listeners and speakers, areas for
improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful in oral
communication situations
3.1 describe a few different strategies they used before, during, and after
listening and explain which ones were most helpful
Learning Goals
(Unpacked Expectations)
Students are able to:
• • explain the purposes of listening for note-making
• • describe how speakers highlight or draw
attention to key ideas
• • demonstrate before, during, and after listening
comprehension strategies
• • listen to an audio clip and use a graphic
organizer to summarize the ideas
Planning with the End in Mind
Criteria for Level 3 Performance (Achievement Chart Category)
This lesson is preparing students to successfully meet the following criteria
from the summative evaluation that follows this series of lessons:
•• Describes critical features of active listening strategies (Knowledge and
Understanding)
•• Explains why active listening strategies are essential. (Knowledge and
Understanding)
•• Retells/restates key ideas, i.e. analyzes, makes inferences, draws
conclusions, summarizes, evaluates and asks questions with considerable
thoughtfulness and accuracy (Thinking)
•• Interprets using critical analysis with considerable effectiveness to
identify perspectives, beliefs, and values present in a text (Thinking)
•• Uses analysis with considerable effectiveness to identify strengths, needs,
next steps, and reasons for selecting particular strategies for active
listening and listening comprehension (Thinking)
Evaluation
Tasks
• • Responses based on watching a dialogue in
a film to analyse how listening strategies are
evident in a clip
• • Reflections comparing the listening used by the
character to their own strengths as listeners
• • Description of a time when students felt
they were not listened to, and the impact this
experience had on them
• • Responses to a listening task (e.g., listening to
a podcast), including critical analysis to identify
perspectives, beliefs and values
• • Reflections comparing their before, during, and
after strategies; and identifying strengths, needs,
next steps for active listening and listening
comprehension
Tools
The rubric should be shared and/or collaboratively
developed with students early in the instructional
trajectory.
Instructional Components and Context
Readiness
•• Think/Pair/Share
•• Active listening strategies
•• Listening comprehension
strategies
Literacy Strategies
• • T-Chart
• • Three-Step Interview
• • I dentifying structural elements of a
narrative, using graphic organizers such as
a story map or Marzano’s narrative frame
Assessment Tools and Strategies
• • Self-Assessment Checklist
• • Informal indicators
• • Circulate, observe, cue, provide oral feedback
Terminology
•• Narrative elements
•• Narrative structure
•• Retell
Collaborative Skills
• • Ensure equal voice by taking turns
• • Fulfill a specific group role
• • Use active listening strategies
• • Take individual accountability
Next Steps
• • Make connections between texts and their
personal knowledge and experience with other
texts and the world.
• • Interpret oral texts and support interpretations
with evidence.
L i t e r ac y G a i n s T r a n s f o r m i n g I n s t r u c t i o n a l P r a c t i c e S u pp o r t s – G r a d e 9 App l i e d E n g l i s h 1
Listening for Effective Note-making Lesson 2 Grade 9 Applied English
Guiding Questions
Pause and Ponder
•• How is effective note-making different from copying?
•• Why are active listening and thinking necessary for effective note-making?
Materials
Minds On… Approximate time: 40 minutes
Whole Class ➔ Introduce Topic
Refer to the different kinds of notes made previously, i.e. copying down the T-chart, making
notes during the Three-Step Interview, making a summary note on active listening strategies.
Distinguish between different kinds of notes, their purposes, challenges, and benefits. This
discussion might include a distinction between note-taking and note-making, when and why
copying is necessary, and why note-making is valuable.
Students self-assess their note-making strategies using the Note-making Strategies and Skills
Self-Assessment checklist and place it in their learning portfolio.
Small Groups ➔ Three-Step Interview
Students practise questioning, active listening, and note-making, as they explore their
classmates’ perspectives on note-making in a Three-Step Interview.
Students collaboratively create interview questions, rotate roles, and complete the Three-Step
Interview template.
Focus a debrief on the active listening and note-making strategies observed during interviews.
Collect completed interview templates to see evidence of students’ note-making.
Whole Class ➔ Learning Goals
Brainstorm classroom, work, and daily-life situations in which active note-making strategies would
benefit both listeners and speaker and reasons why these strategies are important.
Create a Note-making T-chart with the labels: “What the speaker can do” and “What the listener
can do.” Brainstorm strategies speakers use to support active listening, and note-making and active
listening and note-making strategies listeners can use.
Make the connection between action/strategies and understanding/internal state.
Share the lesson’s learning goals.
Each student selects one note-making strategy to practise, writes it on a sticky note, and displays it.
Action! 3 brief, high-interest oral
texts
Connections Menu
Rubric
Connecting Practice and
Research:
- Listening Guide
- Strategy
Implementation
Continuum
Compare and Contrast
Use assessment of
previous day’s note-making
to inform discussion.
Circulate, cueing
students to use active
listening strategies and
providing oral feedback
Approximate time: 20 minutes
Whole Class ➔ Modelling
Play or read aloud an oral narrative listening selection, e.g., “Speaker’s Anecdote” or another
selection from a storyteller’s source, an Aesop’s fable, a children’s story, or an anecdote while
modelling note-making.
Use a graphic organizer, e.g., story map, Somebody Wanted But So, or a story frame such as
Marzano’s narrative frame. Accompany the modelling with a think-aloud to demonstrate the
internal dialogue that might occur when engaging with and making notes on a text.
Model how to refer to notes to retell the story by focussing on structural elements.
Pairs ➔ Assessing Understanding and Note-Making Success
Pair students so that each works with someone who has selected a different approach to note-making.
Students listen to a similar short high-interest text and make notes. They review their notes and
highlight what they wish to check and note what might be missing.
Play or read the selection a second time. Using their notes to cue them, students take turns
retelling the narrative using their notes to cue recall.
Collect students’ notes to assess strengths, identify areas for improvement, and inform next steps.
Consolidation Approximate time: 15 minutes
Whole Class/Individual ➔ Debriefing and Reflection
Examine how the second listening differed from the first and what students learned about listening
from that experience. Comment on how intentional strategies can improve comprehension and recall.
Review what it means to be “strategic” and what kinds of occasions warrant being strategic. Discuss
overlap of active note-making and listening comprehension strategies and the importance of
recognizing the type of text and its structure to identifying main ideas, note-making, and recall.
Students reflect in their Learning Portfolio on their success at listening to make notes and retell.
Home or Next Lesson Connection
Think about yourself as a listener and your preferred ways of learning. Consider if you learn more from
listening or by seeing or if you use listening and seeing together to learn. Explain your thinking.
L i t e r ac y G a i n s T r a n s f o r m i n g I n s t r u c t i o n a l P r a c t i c e S u pp o r t s – G r a d e 9 App l i e d E n g l i s h 2
Listening for Effective Note-making Lesson 2 Connections Menu
Rubric
Connecting Practice and Research: Listening Guide
Strategy Implementation Continuum
Minds On …
Kinds of Notes
Compare-Contrast
Note-making Strategies and Skills Self-Assessment
Questioning
Note-making
Action!
Speaker’s Ancedote
Structural Elements
Differentiation
Consolidate …
Reflect
Learning Portfolios
L i t e r ac y G a i n s T r a n s f o r m i n g I n s t r u c t i o n a l P r a c t i c e S u pp o r t s – G r a d e 9 App l i e d E n g l i s h
Grade 9 Applied English
Listening Rubric
Level 4 Advanced
Knowledge and
Understanding
Knowledge of listening comprehension
strategies (connecting,
visualizing, questioning,
monitoring, summarizing, inferring)
Understanding of active
listening strategies
Level 3 Proficient
Level 2 Developing
Level 1 Beginning
• • thoroughly describes
critical features of
active listening
• • describes critical
features of active
listening
• • describes some
critical features of
active listening
• • describes a couple
of critical features of
active listening
• • thoroughly explains
why active listening
strategies are
essential
• • explains why active
listening strategies
are essential
• • explains why active
listening strategies
are important
• • gives a reason why
active listening
strategies are
important
• • retells/restates key
ideas, i.e., analyzes,
makes inferences,
draws conclusions,
summarizes,
evaluates and asks
questions with a high
degree of insight and
thoroughness
• • retells/restates
key ideas and
asks questions
with considerable
thoughtfulness and
accuracy
• • retells/restates
key ideas and asks
questions with some
accuracy
• • retells/restates
key ideas and asks
questions with
limited accuracy
• • interprets, using
critical analysis with
some effectiveness,
to identify
perspectives, beliefs
and values present in
a text
• • interprets, using
critical analysis with
limited effectiveness,
to identify
perspectives, beliefs
and values present in
a text
• • uses analysis with
some effectiveness
to identify strengths,
needs, next steps,
and reasons for
selecting particular
strategies for active
listening strategies
and listening
comprehension
• • uses limited
analysis to identify
some strengths,
needs, next steps,
and reasons for
selecting particular
strategies for active
listening strategies
and listening
comprehension
Thinking
Use of processing skills
to make meaning of oral
text
• • uses analysis with
a high degree of
effectiveness to
identify strengths,
needs, next steps,
and reasons for
selecting particular
strategies for active
listening strategies
and listening
comprehension
Use of self-reflective
thinking process of metacognition
• • uses analysis with
a high degree of
effectiveness to
identify strengths,
needs, next steps,
and reasons for
selecting particular
strategies for active
listening strategies
and listening
comprehension
• • interprets, using
critical analysis
with considerable
effectiveness, to
identify perspectives,
beliefs and values
present in a text
• • uses analysis with
considerable
effectiveness to
identify strengths,
needs, next steps,
and reasons for
selecting particular
strategies for active
listening strategies
and listening
comprehension
L i t e r ac y G a i n s T r a n s f o r m i n g I n s t r u c t i o n a l P r a c t i c e S u pp o r t s – G r a d e 9 App l i e d E n g l i s h
Listening for Effective Note-making Lesson 2 Grade 9 Applied English
Minds On…
Note-making Strategies and Skills Self-Assessment
Note-Making Strategies and Skills
✔
A strength
I use graphic organizers for note-taking.
I write notes in my own words.
I write notes in point form.
I use abbreviations when I am making notes.
I use symbols when I am making notes.
I organize my notes in columns, with headings.
I make notes legibly.
I identify notes by date.
I identify my notes by topic.
I identify my notes by speaker.
I organize my notes by the main ideas, supporting ideas, and facts.
I try to write down exactly what I hear.
I have effective strategies to find out what I missed if I can’t keep up with a speaker.
It is easy for me to identify what is important, what is interesting and what is just nice
to know when listening.
I know how to pick out the important details when listening.
I make additional notes in the margins and write down questions that I might need to
ask for clarification after listening.
I know how to use clues like voice emphasis, pitch, volume and pace to help identify
important points.
I review my notes and, if necessary, summarize them.
I review and edit my notes regularly.
I review my notes for new vocabulary or terminology.
I review my notes by reciting them out loud to help me remember the speaker’s
message.
I know that I get most of the key information when listening.
I can retell a story or explain a lesson that I listened to just by looking at my notes.
I keep trying to get the key ideas even when the speaker’s pace is a bit fast for me.
L i t e r ac y G a i n s T r a n s f o r m i n g I n s t r u c t i o n a l P r a c t i c e S u pp o r t s – G r a d e 9 App l i e d E n g l i s h
Area for
improvement
✩
?
Unsure
Listening for Effective Note-making Lesson 2 Grade 9 Applied English
Minds On…
Purposes, Challenges, and Benefits of Notes
Kinds of
Notes
Purposes
Challenges
Benefits
Copying the T-Chart
Making Notes during the
Three-Step Interview
• • Record notes for future reference
• • Reinforce listening and learning
•• Record notes during information
gathering
•• Ensure accuracy and detail
•• Gives credible evidence
• • Copying can be boring unless
•• It’s difficult to keep up to the
used as an opportunity to review,
speaker
ask for clarification
•• It’s difficult to make decisions
• • Easy to fall into mindless and
about what’s important while
meaningless copying; have to
ideas are being spoken
decide to pay attention
•• Once ideas are spoken, listeners
can’t go back unless they ask the
speaker to repeat
• • Efficient and brief graphic form
•• Encourages processing while
of notes
listening
• • Can be used to review, ask for
•• Active processing means you are
clarification
engaged
• • Putting what’s heard into another •• Active processing means you are
form (what you can see) reinforces understanding
understanding and recall
•• Understanding improves recall
Collaboratively Creating a
Summary Note
• • Synthesize and summarize
information
• • Reach a consensus about the
most important information
• • Negotiating multiple perspectives
• • Easy to let others do the thinking;
have to decide to participate
• • Discussion can help clarify and
elaborate information
• • Multiple perspectives help you
co-construct meaning
• • Discussion means you can make
connections to what you already
know
Compare-Contrast
Similarities and differences is Marzano’s (2001) first macro strategy. Comparison matrices, which take the form of integrated
lists, are useful tools for summarizing, comparing and contrasting.
L i t e r ac y G a i n s T r a n s f o r m i n g I n s t r u c t i o n a l P r a c t i c e S u pp o r t s – G r a d e 9 App l i e d E n g l i s h
Listening for Effective Note-making Lesson 2 Grade 9 Applied English
Minds On…
Note-making
Definitions
Note-taking: copying verbatim from a source, e.g., speaker
Note-making: creating a written record of what you understand and think is important from what you
heard.
Why Make Notes?
To help focus attention
To encourage active listening
To increase understanding
To increase recall
To create a record that can be referred to later
How?
• • Prepare to listen, learn, and make notes, e.g. by having a notebook and pen.
• • S et a goal. The general goal is to record enough information to be able to reconstruct the
important elements of what you will hear. A specific goal might be to obtain specific information.
• • S elect a note-making strategy. Choose the approach that best suits your learning preferences
and skills, e.g., outline or graphic organizer.
• • Organize.
Choose the note-making format that most closely reflects the deep structural
organization of the text.
• • Listen
actively, using all the strategies to improve your listening and understanding, e.g.,
adjusting your predictions and body language.
• • U se listening comprehension strategies, e.g. asking questions to clarify understanding.
• • Pay
particular attention to the beginning and end, to repetition, voice, and gestures that indicate
important information.
• • R ecord notes as efficiently as possible, using point form, abbreviations, columns and headings.
• • Rephrase: Use your own words, wherever possible.
• • R educe information to key words and phrases that can prompt recall and to which you can add
later.
• • Summarize important ideas at the bottom of the page.
• • Review notes, adding details.
L i t e r ac y G a i n s T r a n s f o r m i n g I n s t r u c t i o n a l P r a c t i c e S u pp o r t s – G r a d e 9 App l i e d E n g l i s h
Listening for Effective Note-making Lesson 2 Grade 9 Applied English
Minds On…
Questioning
As researchers recognized that comprehension is “multicomponential,” those like Palinscar & Brown (1984) moved to
models of multiple rather than single strategies. Summarizing and questioning, for example, are two of four components
of Reciprocal Teaching, along with predicting and clarifying. According to Pressley (2003), the effects of strategies such as
summarizing and self-questioning “were consistent” and “striking”. In their studies of how college students relate to lecture
notes as a text, Nist and Simpson (2003) findings indicate that generating and answering their own questions had more
effect on recall than writing summaries.
Taffy Raphael’s (1984) Question-Answer-Relationships (QAR) is one approach to teaching students the difference between
closed questions that request specific information from the text and questions that require making connections, integrating,
transforming or generating information. Another approach to questions is the Mosenthal and Hardt “Question Structure: A
Four-Step Strategy”. See the interactive video and resources.
Sample Interview Questions
Three-Step Interview Questions
• • Do you regularly make notes? Why or why not?
• • Do you prefer using graphic organizers or making outline notes? Why?
• • Does making notes while listening decrease or increase your understanding? Why?
• • What note-making strategies do you use to make sure your notes are useful afterwards?
• • Do you find that some speakers are easier to make notes from than others? If so, what makes it easier to make notes?
• • How useful would your notes be to another student? Why?
• • How do you organize your notes?
• • How do you decide what to write down in your notes?
• • What do you do when you can’t keep up to the speaker?
L i t e r ac y G a i n s T r a n s f o r m i n g I n s t r u c t i o n a l P r a c t i c e S u pp o r t s – G r a d e 9 App l i e d E n g l i s h
Listening for Effective Note-making Lesson 2 Grade 9 Applied English
Action
Speaker’s Anecdote
Brody, Goldspinner, Gree, Leventhal, Porcino , Eds. (2002). Spinning Tales, Weaving Hope. New Society Publishers.
Structural Elements
• • Research increasingly indicates the importance of being able to identify and use knowledge of structure (RAND, 2003).
• • K nowledge of structure is developmental, corresponding to age and grade. Knowledge of the structures of expository text
is still incomplete at the end of high school (Goldman & Rakestraw, 2003).
• • U nderstanding of text structure results in increased comprehension and recall (Pressley & McCormick, 1995; Goldman
& Rakestraw, 2003; RAND, 2003). Making the structure of a text more evident, e.g., through graphic cues such as bullets,
supports comprehension.
• • Learners who lack content knowledge rely heavily on text structure for comprehension (Goldman & Rakestraw, 2003;
Alexander & Jetton, 2003; RAND, 2003).
• • Training in text structure increases performance more than training in signal words (Meyer and Poon, 2004).
• • S tructure is most helpful when surface structural features correspond to deep conceptual structures, e.g., when actual
order of events matches the description of them (Goldman & Rakestraw, 2003). Strategy interventions include selfquestioning and summarizing (RAND, 2003).
• • Pressley and McCormick (1995) recommend using text structure to abstract the main ideas from text. This skill is essential
to summarizing, a macro skill identified by Marzano as one of the most effective learning strategies. Questions, prompts,
frames, and graphic organizers can all direct students to text structure.
• • A challenge in adolescent literacy is the number and variety of structures that underlie expository and informational text.
These are much more varied than narrative structures, both across and within subjects. The challenges are compounded by
less familiar content, dense information, unfamiliar vocabulary. Students need explicit instruction in and experience with
these texts (RAND, 2003).
When teaching graphic organizers to students, teachers might ask the following questions:
• • To what extent does the graphic organizer help students build coherent and meaningful representations of information?
This is Goldman and Rakestraw’s (2003) definition of understanding.
• • How does the graphical nature of the organizer reinforce students’ conceptual understanding?
Michael D. Hardt and the late Dr. Peter B. Mosenthal, Performance by Design, use the following framework to discuss
structure: parts, functions, connections.
• • What are the components of the graphic organizer? Describe their features and critical attributes.
• • What is the purpose or function of each of the components?
• • What are the internal connections in the organizer?
• • With what does the organizer connect beyond itself, e.g., is it a particular type of organizer?
Select text of the type being studied so that students are working with familiar text structures. Discuss how knowledge
of text structure can increase comprehension and how note-making organizers that reflect the deep structure of the text
are more effective as note-making organizers and scaffolds.
Differentiation
Providing controlled choice of texts not only is motivating and respectful of learners’ interests, but also develops selfdirected learners who select their own learning goals.
L i t e r ac y G a i n s T r a n s f o r m i n g I n s t r u c t i o n a l P r a c t i c e S u pp o r t s – G r a d e 9 App l i e d E n g l i s h
Listening for Effective Note-making Lesson 2 Grade 9 Applied English
Consolidate
Reflect
Students’ ability to reflect cannot be taken for granted. Students may need modeling of language and analytical process.
Sentence starters and question prompts are effective strategies for suggesting what information is required in a response.
Likert scales and other graphic strategies can also prompt reflection.
Learning Portfolios
Portfolios or journals need to be used by students in subsequent lessons, e.g., for students to monitor their progress, to assess
success in reaching goals, to set new goals, and as evidence during a teacher-student conference.
L i t e r ac y G a i n s T r a n s f o r m i n g I n s t r u c t i o n a l P r a c t i c e S u pp o r t s – G r a d e 9 App l i e d E n g l i s h