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Pre / During / Post Reading Strategy
POWER NOTES / MAPS  
Power Thinking

Overview:  Power notes help students differentiate between main ideas and details (Miller, 1985; Sparks, 1982).  The procedure is similar to outlining but is much easier for students because ideas are assigned numbers, and they don’t have to worry about having (2) of the same in order to have an entry.  The main idea is a power 1 while the details, examples, elaboration are powers 2s, 3s, or 4s.

Steps:  
        1. Introduce concept of powers with simple example:

2.       Write power 1, 2, 3 words on separate 3x5 cards on several topics.  Mix them up and distribute one card to each student.  Have them sort the cards into categories and then into powers.

3.       Use your text book as a tool for discovering powers within text.  Encourage two-column notes with chapter heading as power 1, bold headings as power 2s (on left side of 2 column notes) and details, examples, etc. as power 3s (on right side of 2 column notes).

4.       POWER MAP can be used after “K” of KWL and then students can add to their map as they gain information from text, lecture, video, etc.

(Santa, 1996)

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