A Tale of Two Notebooks

Take a look at these two student notebooks. Which looks like the student paid more attention to the day's lesson? Which one do you think is a "good student," and which one would you be more concerned about?

A.

B.

Now, which one better understands something about the Vietnam War?

GCMS 7th grade teacher, Emily Werner, taught her students how to "sketchnote." In sketchnoting, students draw out whatever image seems to them to capture the ideas being discussed in class. The emphasis is not on artistry and organization, but on capturing meaning: if the lecture is about locks on the Panama Canal, and I draw a sloppy padlock across a blue line, as long as I remember that represents locks on the Panama Canal, it doesn't matter that my classmate drew a beautifully illustrated key inserted into a perfectly crafted map of Panama.

So, actually, the second student more faithfully captured the idea of Sketchnoting. But one important concept in Sketchnoting is that there's no right way to do it -- if one student needs more words than another, that's fine. So neither is inherently better or worse: it all comes down to whether students can recall the information.

So here's the point:

I asked both students to explain Ngo Dinh Diem to me. If you can't make it out, he is mentioned on the first page of the written notes, in the red ink paragraph at the bottom. He is also labeled as the figure standing alone at the bottom left of notebook "B." For notebook B, the student said, "He seized power, so that's why he knocked down this guy here. And once he was in power, everything he did was against Communism, because that's all he thought about." For notebook A? That student said, "He wanted to be President."

So... which is the better notebook? I would argue the one that led the student to a deeper and stronger understanding of the material: Notebook B.