Adding Teacher Notes

About this Support Strategy

Sometimes, you just want to add your own notes to a text, especially if there are words, phrases, or ideas you think the students might not grasp right away. This strategy involves adding boxes to a Google Doc with your notes to support your students as they read independently.

This Strategy in Action

Teacher Notes in a Passage

Look for

The green boxes contain a light bulb as a signal that it's a teacher note. These notes can be definitions of domain-specific or unknown vocabulary words, explanation of a difficult section, or prompting questions to help the students reflect or draw their attention to a specific and important part of the text.

Implementing this Strategy

Adding Teacher Note Boxes

Find the place you want to add the box within the body of the text
Select Insert and hover over Table
Add a 1x2 table if you want to add an icon and then the note. Otherwise, a 1x1 table will be sufficient.
If you want to color-code the notes, use the paint bucket to fill the box with a chosen color
Add your teacher comment in the box for students to see

Note 1: Definitions

Define unknown words or content-specific terms and phrases. Provide links to images to support understanding

Note 2: Observations

Draw their attention to specific parts of the text, especially if you'll be analyzing them in depth later

Note 3: Questions

Ask thought-provoking questions to your students. These questions can kick off class discussions later.

Note 4: Explanation

If there is a particularly difficult question, try putting the section in your own words to support students as they read.

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