Organization-A

Overview
//"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." Albus Dumbledore//

//"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." Aristotle//

Good organization is the main ingredient of success in most fields. If you do not already have habits of good organization, I encourage you to obtain them, in your thinking, reading, notetaking, notekeeping, and use of your time. “The successful person is the individual who forms the habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do.”

Thinking

 * To understand something is to grasp its essentials. You should be able to encapsulate your learning about a topic in a single sentence if required. The depth of your knowledge is then measured by how much you can expand on this generalization by explaining each of its main components, and then, on their components, and so forth.
 * The best mental scaffolding for the development of your knowledge is a pyramid structure. Support your single-sentence “take-away” generalization by coming up with three main points of evidence or justification. Then support the supports by giving each of them three supports, and so on.
 * Three is the right number of supports for a generalization because four supports are too many to be remembered, and two supports make your case seem weak and precarious. ("It takes three facts to make a truth."–Eugene Manlove Rhodes)
 * The “pyramid principle”, or three-part structure for understanding and communication, has been accepted and used for centuries by experts in education and communication. It underlies the “Five paragraph essay” we learn to write at WFS (introduction, three supporting paragraphs, conclusion).
 * You should learn to apply this principle in all of the documents you use to organize your own thinking, and all your communications.

Reading

 * Reading regularly and deeply is indispensable to becoming an independent thinker. ("Anyone who is going to make anything out of history will, sooner or later, have to do most of the work himself. He will have to read, and consider, and reconsider, and then read some more.” Geoffrey Barraclough)
 * For the sake of your future roles as workers and as citizens, all of you need to learn to read quickly and efficiently. Many of you do not read unless you have to, and many others don't read non-fiction. You will only do so with pleasure if you get reasonably efficient at it. As with anything else, practice is key: practice in reading every day, and in reading in a structured, critical way.
 * In my courses we have students with varying levels of ability in history and with varying levels of interest. I try never to assign more than 12 pages of reading, and usually, only 10 or so. Through years of experience, I know that this amount can be done by the entire class within 40 minutes and by most, in under 25 minutes,
 * I require that you do all assigned reading, unless there are special circumstances that you discuss with me before the reading is due. Each of you will also need to read additional material in the course of preparing individual projects.
 * I recommend you learn and apply “smart reading” techniques, such as “pre-reading”, and focusing on the portions that address our guiding questions. Consult my “Working Smart, More than Hard” and “Reading Difficult Material” for details about how to do this.
 * If I find you are not doing the required reading, I may require you to come in during the special help period to do it in class.
 * If you find that you are having difficulty keeping up with assigned reading, you should keep track of any reading you do related to the course (not necessarily just assigned reading), in the "Reading Record" form. I will ask you to show me this record, and I will use this form to advise you about how to improve your study skills and to determine how I can improve course materials and assignments in the future.

Notetaking

 * Reading and listening intelligently means doing so actively, which means taking notes.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This will be the core of the homework in this class. I summarize the related requirements in a separate, course-specific Policies document, “Homework”, and in the section “Working Smart More than Hard”.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">It is also important that our learning during class be captured in notes. Whenever I give a presentation, I will try to supply printed presentation notes with a copy of the material that I present. In this way, I relieve students of most of the recording task involved. You should use this same document to take notes of key points that come out in my verbal presentation, or in discussion.
 * Excerpt of a letter from an alum:
 * Dear Mr. Ergueta, I just wanted to keep in touch. I am at [major university] for five weeks this summer taking a class and getting acclimated to the environment, before the fall semester starts. My class is international relations class. We mostly do a lot of reading and a lot of notetaking. It kind of reminds me of your history class, except instead of 15 pages of reading each night we have about 100. The reading is very dense, and I find I have to take two or three pages of organized notes to really understand it well. Then, I have to summarize the notes from my readings into something that's manageable the study from. In this respect your classroom really really helped me. I learned how to take good notes from difficult readings, but I also learned I would have to summarize those notes into something manageable that I could study from and commit to memory. Your charts are my inspiration.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Materials organization

 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This year together we will cover a great many concepts and supporting evidence. To prevent notes and handouts from simply piling up in a disorderly and confusing manner over the course of the year, you will need to develop good habits of physical organization.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I am providing you with guidelines and resources that are applicable across all the units we will cover. Most of these will be available on this website, History-Schmistory.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You should keep at least one binder dedicated to this course and you should keep it neat and orderly.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For every one of our couse units, I strongly recommend that you divide your binder into the following sections:
 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Unit organization: Essential Questions and IB Topics and Questions from Previous IB Exams, a printed copy of the Master Calendar, printed copies of the debate and research essay topics.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Class Notes: summary charts and notes prepared by you and classmates during class.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Reading Notes: Your homework reading notes.
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Readings Handouts. The actual documents.
 * 5) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Project: Work done for a debate, presentation, essay or historical investigation).
 * 6) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Vocabulary, Geography and Review
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You should bring your binder with all current class and reading notes to class every day.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You should keep all completed units in back-up binders or folders at home as an aid to your studying for the final exam and (for IB students) the IB exams.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">You do not have to bring textbooks to class.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Time organization

 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I publish and also announce assignments in class substantially in advance of their being due, and I will expect you to organize yourself to complete your course homework around your other obligations.
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There is no time like now to habituate yourself to being punctual. Perhaps unlike in previous years, you should not expect to get by simply by looking at the homework sheet and doing it on a day-by-day basis; you should look ahead and plan when and how you will complete the unit projects. I summarize the class punctuality policies in the page devoted to Punctuality.

Study Organization

 * See my recommendations in the sections devoted to "IB Assessments".