Students are being scored on their note taking by how well they were able to collect and organize their information independently. Some student had a difficult time writing down the information. They wanted to just read and talk to their friends about what they discovered. Others, were taking notes like crazy and even filled in their interesting facts column.
We then had to turn our notes into paragraphs about our pets. I again modeled how I highlighted each part of a column in a different color to help me organize my information even more and make sure I was including it all in my paragraphs. For example, all my notes about eating habits was highlighted in pink, social habits in blue, and sleeping habits in yellow. Then, we were ready to write our paragraphs.
As you can see, some students did a wonderful job finding, gathering, and organizing their information. Other students had difficulty focusing to get the information written down, so their papers don't have a lot on them.