Hopefully, you have purchased a notebook that you can use to take notes, draw pictures, and express yourself on topics dealing with US History. But the cover is so boring!! It ís up to you to spice it up! Your cover will be a reminder that you are serious about doing your best in US History.

Content: Your cover should have the following basic elements in writing somewhere on the cover and easily readable:

The name of the course: US History
The words: Interactive Student Notebook
The class period that you have US History: Period 1 (or 2, etc).
The school year: 2001-2002
The Teacher: Mr. Cassutto
Your name

You may place these elements anywhere on the cover as long as they can be easily identified.

Visual Content: Historical Information

Thumb through your textbook to identify two (2) major periods, ideas, or events in US History in which you are interested. Use your table of contents to help you find the chapter timelines which can help you review the major events of our nationís history.  Draw or use magazines, or print images from the Internet or CD-ROM (such as Encarta or Grolier's) to show the two events or periods within the design of your cover. You can label the events if it helps your design.

Personal Information

Identify one aspect of yourself as a person or as a student and place it on the cover. If you are a skateboarding expert, use the skateboard as a symbol for yourself. If you play the violin, use the violin as a symbol for yourself and include it in your cover design. The symbol can be your favorite thing, a hobby, or something special about you.

Use your creativity to develop a cover you can be proud of. It can be in mixed media, which means you can use crayons, magazine cut-outs, and construction paper in combination to create a cover that reflects your interests. Or maybe you are a computer graphics artist and want to include your own hand drawings as well. just be sure you have the required content listed above.

Due: Friday
Grade: 30 Points (10 visual appeal, 10 class information, 10 images/symbols)
Good luck!

You can view an example of the History Alive Interactive Notebook Cover from Mr. Cassutto's training course.

Mr. Cassutto has completed his own Interactive Student Notebook cover, which you can see here.

An Interactive Student Notebook cover