To make my point, I ask if I can borrow a highlighter from a student. The idea is to get students to look at different ways of doing things. I ask them to read a preselected passage in the text and write any notes questions about the passage in the margin. When they study the text later, instead of rereading the exact same words that they did before, reading their notes will help them remember better because they have written the summary in their own words. Also, because they have written their questions by the passage, they can ask these in class.
Students write the actual notes and homework in the two-third's space remaining on the page.
The pages are normally dated and numbered so that they can be easily cross-referenced. If the idea is to learn from homework, then this format is especially useful. When homework is covered in class, they can make corrections in the one third section with an arrow to the place where the mistake was made. This helps students learn from their mistakes. Since each text is different, this takes some thought on the instructor's part.