My DS is 14 and a freshman in H.S. He is in a full honors load at a "high achieving" school. He is a very bright kid, but not always compliant. We had issues last spring with enrollment in the honors science, that got resolved successfully. smile Thankfully, as Honors Biology is his favorite class with an excellent teacher and it shows in his grade.

But the class he is struggling with this fall is his required freshman Social Studies class. It's hard to tell how well he is really doing in the class as the teacher has as of yet (it's only the 5th week in school) graded the two essays. But his homework/classwork is dismal. Most of this seems to be because the teacher expects the students to take detailed "Cornell" Notes in class. My son struggles with note taking because he can't figure out what on earth he needs to write down. It was one of the issues with last years science teacher. His point of view is the material is a repeat of material and boring. This class is basically training ground for AP US History next year, and IF he takes AP US it will be required then.

Any hints for how to teach/convince a bright kid to take notes. Any tricks? Specifically Cornell Notes. The teacher wants him to take notes as she lectures, and then come home and take notes on his notes of the left hand side in a different pen to review. He doesn't need to review this material 3 times to learn it and this becomes tedious quickly. HELP..