What it is. Good notes carry enough to write a paragraph without the source.
Why our test works. This is the only real test of note quality, and it is honest because it fails visibly. A child who cannot write the paragraph learns more from that than from any correction — and they learn it about their NOTES, which is where the fault was.
Leans on. Lessons 14 and 26; and the project work at 30-35.
Watch for. Source CLOSED. If it is open the lesson tests nothing.
Write a paragraph directly from your own notes, without the source. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher writes a paragraph from notes alone, source closed, showing that good notes carry The class reads Writing Book 4, p.75 — our own page, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher writes a paragraph from notes alone, source closed, showing that good notes carry the writing. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class turns one outline branch into a sentence together. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 4 to page 75 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: Close the source. Write one paragraph from your notes.
You close on the exit direction — Check: did your notes have enough? — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Close the book. Write from the notes.
Source CLOSED. If it is open the lesson tests nothing.