First let me start by explaining a little bit about what writer's notebooks are. Writer's notebooks are a place for students to write without judgement. They are a place where when students come up with an idea or need to get something out of their head, they can do that in their writer's notebooks. With the notebooks students can be vulnerable, they can take risks, they can get excited about writing and they can push themselves to become better writers. It is really a place for students to feel like they can write without having to meet a specific standard set by a teacher. They can write lists in it, they can write a paragraph or two, they can create diagrams. It is really a place for students to keep ideas that could be helpful to come back to later on when they have to write longer pieces and don't know what to write about.
There are many benefits of having a writer's notebook in your class. First, it promotes fluency in writing and helps to grow volume with is important. It increases writing stamina in students, it encourages them to take risks and gives them a place for reflection and discovery. It also validates their experiences and feelings. I have also found that students really enjoy having these notebooks and getting to write in them. One student I have been working with becomes a different child when she writes. She is such a different kid when she gets to put her ideas down in her notebook, it is honestly one of the coolest things to see because I don't see that side of her much, but she just blossoms as she writes. It is not just her too that gets excited during this time. When my students write, they constantly fight for my attention because they are SO EXCITED for me to look at what they wrote. I did not anticipate so many students to enjoy writing as much as they do and as a teacher it is so awesome to see them get so excited.
There are many ways that you can launch the writer's notebooks with your students, during class we talked about reading aloud a children's book that connects to students, wrap the notebook up like a present or lead with a poem. You could also have students decorate their notebooks to make them very personal. My favorite way that we talked about launching the notebooks was by including a video connected to being brave, specifically using Sara Bareilles' song "Brave." I love that song so much and have for a while and it fits so perfectly with launching a writer's notebook and I cannot wait to try that one day with students!
What if students say: "I have nothing to write about"
There are many things that you can have students do to get them writing below are just a few:
Take clippings from magazines
Make lists (least favorite things/favorite things)
Talk about a photograph
Write about a place special to you
Go on a nature walk and write about that
Write about a specific object
One that I did for this week was writing a list of my favorite food and my least favorite food. Now that I have this list if I want/need something to write about later I can go back to this list and pick something to write about. For example, I do not like sushi, but I really with I did. It is something that I really want to like and have tried many different times, but every time I try it, it is the same result. I could write a lot about this, but it is something I am passionate about and can describe a lot of my feelings towards sushi before I put it in my mouth, which are positive feelings, and then I can describe my feelings after I put it in my mouth which are very negative.
Another thing that you could have students do is make a heart map, which I made one of as well and you can see below. For me this was a really fun thing to do because I wrote all about the special things that I think about a lot and really sit in my heart. For example, books have a huge place in my heart, especially the ones I put on my heart. Also, I feel like meaningful connections to people, especially students is huge and that also has a place in my heart because it makes a huge difference in your relationships with others. I had a really positive experience when writing this piece because I would not help but smile when doing it, because they were all things that just made me super happy. When making this, I had a hard time just putting a couple words down about things, I wanted to badly to take some of these this to the next page and just write extensively about them, I just had so much more I wanted to say which is a good thing and I now can go back to this page the next time I want to write something and pull from this hear.
Mentor Texts
For this week, I read chapter two from Mentor Texts: Teaching Writing Through Children's Literature, K-6. All I can say is wow did this open my eyes to some awesome new ideas that I cannot wait to try with my students. One of the things that really stuck out to me was when the authors said, "The books that our students connect with on many levels are the books they fall in love with and want to return to for many reasons. These are the books that become mentors for our writers" (Dorfman & Capelli, 2017, p. 22). I think that this just highlights the importance of knowing your students and strategically choosing a mentor text that they will be able to pull a lot from and use the text as inspiration for their own writing.
Another thing that really stuck out to me in this chapter was when Dorfman and Capelli write, "Returning to a writer's notebook builds confidence in all writers, especially those students who struggle with writing or who opt out whenever possible" (2017, p. 23). This stuck out to me because my students are constantly telling me when I have then pull out their writer's notebooks, "But I don't know how to write." When they tell me this I go over to them and say yes you do and I show them all the awesome writing that they have done so far and I give them compliments on all that they have done well so far. When I show them the writing they have done and talked with them about the awesome work they are doing they always have such a bright, happy look on their face after because they are like "oh yeah, I do know how to write, I have done awesome with it already." That is something that is also really cool to see with students is them gaining confidence as writers and confidence that they really do know what they are doing and can do it very well.
I have seen this confidence shine through with my students already. The other day I was modeling a writing for a group of students and they were helping me to spell what I was writing and I was writing it where they are in their understanding of word patterns. For example, they do not know about vCe patterns yet. In my sentence I was writing I was using the word name and when I got to it I said the word, then sounded it out and spelled "nam" because those are the sounds you hear. Next thing I know one of my students said "Ms. Hamilton that's not how you spell name, you forgot the 'e' at the end." I was so impressed that the student knew that it was spelled that way, and then had the confidence to tell me I spelled it wrong. As a teacher that was really a great experience and awesome to see these students taking charge like that.
One other thing that stood out to me from chapter two was how teachers can bring in the books they are reading to the writing workshop and the power that can have for students and the writing that could happen because of that. I think that students would love to see that and would think it is cool to see a book the teacher is reading and then see how they write from it. It is good modeling on the teachers behalf for the students. This made me think of a page from the book Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal that I also read from this week. In her book, Rosenthal has a page about Mundane Highs and Lows after looking at that page, I instantly thought about how awesome it would be to do something like that with students (2016, p. 79). I thought about how it could be something fun to track throughout the week and have students write in their books whenever something super awesome happens to write it down, or if something not so awesome happens they can write that down too. At the end of the week, we could see how students highs and lows may compare throughout the week and talk about them because one person may think of one thing as a high and another person may not see it as one of theirs. I could see it sparking some interesting conversations and interesting writing from the students. There could be a great reflective piece involved at the end as well where students could really decompress and break down how their week went and maybe ways that the next week could go better. Below is a picture of what it looked like in the book:
Another page in Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal that I really liked was her page about person-food associations and how you can say one time that you like something and the people you can about will hear that and then get you overwhelming amounts of it, even though it may not be your favorite. Below you can see an image of the table she had in the book and then my adaptation of it that I wrote in my writer's notebook because it happens with me some too. Although I have lots of favorite foods so some of them are correct.
Brown Girl Dreaming
This week I also started the book called Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson. This is a book that is written in verse that is her memoir, it is her and her families history laid out in one place. I have only gotten a little ways through it but already it is so powerful and heart-wrenching. Woodson writes these poems in such a thoughtful and crafted way that really speaks to the reader. I feel like I her and her family already without even having met them. I honestly was nervous starting it because I have a really hard time reading text that is in verse sometimes so I was very nervous, but I was surprised at how this had me reading word after word, line after line with ease taking in these beautifully crafted pieces one at a time to for this visual in my hear about her and her family.
One piece that really resonated with me from this book was "a girl named jack" on page six. This was a similar conversation that I hear that my parents had when I was born and that they could not decide and agree on what to name me. I was inspired by this piece and decided to write my poem about my name and how it came to be. I am not the best at writing poetry and I am not yet as talented as Woodson, but here is my attempt at writing about my name:
My Name
My name is Halie
But it wasn't always
supposed to be that way.
At first it was Vidalia
because my mom heard
it in a song and thought it was beautiful.
But my grandma
pitched a fit
and didn't want me named after an onion.
Then it was Hey You
To give my great grandma
a hard time, but she thought it was beautiful.
When time came
to pick my name
my parents couldn't decide.
My mom wanted Hannah
my dad wanted Hailey
So they compromised.
My dad got the name,
but my mom got to spell it
which is why I'm
Halie Elizabeth Hamilton
Resources
Dorfman, L. R. & Cappelli, R. (2017) Mentor texts: Teaching writing through children's literature, K-6. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.
Heard, G. (2016). Heart maps: Helping students create and craft authentic writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Rosenthal, A. K. (2016) Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. New York, NY: Dutton.
Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming. New York, NY: Puffin Books.