I teach freshman English, and part of their final exam is to turn in an organized binder. I set up the binder with my students during the first week of school. They have 5 sections, and must have a three-ring binder. I always have left over binders from when I grade them at the end of the year, so if a student doesn’t have his or hers (I give them three days to get one, starting on the first day of school), then I let them borrow one. I also have packages of brightly colored paper they can use if they forget to get dividers. I also have some notebook paper they can use if they forgot, to get them started. I won’t supply them for the whole year, though. Their sections are Vocab, Book–this is general for whatever main piece of literature we are studying–Writing, Grammar, and Journal/Misc. I give them a paper that lays all this out, but I take about 30 minutes to help get everyone set up, so by the second week of school, everyone is ready to go. Also on this day, I take old manila folders that I don’t use anymore and hand one to each student. They put their name on it, and pass it back to me. I keep them in a drawer in the classroom, and whenever they want, they can put their completed and graded papers into it, to keep their binders lighter. They don’t have to use it, but I give them the option as a way to help them keep all their papers throughout the year. Most students use it, and find it really helps.

As I pass papers back, I tell them what section to put it in, but once they get used to it, they can usually tell where it should go. The sections are specific enough, that they know vocab quizzes should go in the vocab section!

Once we finish a literature unit, and I have passed back all papers from that unit, I spend about 20 minutes one day and help them clean out their binders. I tell them “anything that has to do with Romeo and Juliet (for example) should be out of your binder.” There are somethings, like grammar, and MLA information that needs to stay in their binder all year, but everything else gets taken out and put into the folder. At the end of the year, they organize their entire binder from what they’ve kept n their folder, and it works as a great study tool too!

Thanks, Joy!

Tammy (aka Madame Aiello)

I am nowhere near organized enough to make this work in my own classroom, but I had a teacher who did do it and it worked really well for me as a student.

At the beginning of the year each student set up a three-ring binder with a certain number of divided sections. All papers for every subject went into this binder in an organized fashion. Prior to handing out a worksheet, notes, homework, etc., the teacher would write in the top right corner the letter of the section it was to go under (M for math, E for English, HW for homework, etc.) followed by a number. As worksheets and papers were passed out, the number in the top corner just increased in ascending order.

This made keeping my binder organized an easy task. It also made it really easy for classmates to help each other organize their materials. And from a teacher’s perspective, this would help eliminate those desks that just overflow with loose papers.

Hope this suggestion can help someone.

Jonathan