IL Note Taking

Their last social studies unit was on Illinois. To help prepare for their test I had the kids work in small groups and go back through the unit and choose what they thought was important from what we covered and write it down on their Illinois-shaped note card. I took points for how well they worked together in their group to get the notes collected as well as the amount of information they wrote down that they found important.
I ended up letting them pull out their note card during the last five minutes of their test to check their answers or look up something they were unsure of. For the responsible students who listened and kept this in a safe place, it paid off.