My guided notes are designed for interactive lecture in whole group, direct instruction. I have developed this strategy over 29 years of classroom teaching and they are my "sine qua non" for engaging students so that I may effectively deliver critical content. Students follow the teacher's lead, reasoning through to suggest answers and listening to teacher explanation. Students then complete the blanks left in the guided notes, one step at a time. The most advanced and the most challenged students can actively participate in an interactive lecture based upon well-written guided notes.
Upon completion of any given set of guided notes, students can then apply the facts and concepts learned to analyze primary source documents - both text and graphic. The guided notes become a strong study resource as well.
Specifically, "Review of US History to Civil War" was written to open a standard course (typically 11th grade) in US History from Reconstruction to the Present. It is designed to give a basic refresher of early American History which serves as the foundation upon which the balance of US History rests. I will soon upload successive sets of guided notes for this course.
My class, and thus these guided notes, are built upon the Mississippi state framework, and will be especially helpful to US History teachers in my state. However, they should serve well teachers of this course across the country.