Creating and Effectively Using Writing Notebooks with Students

Writing notebooks are very personal. They vary greatly, depending on the personality of the writer and the direction classroom teachers provide. We love to see how other teachers instruct students on the purpose and structure of writing notebooks. We always come away with an idea we can adjust and make our own. In this first of four videos, Gail meets with a fourth grade class that is just beginning to set up writing notebooks. She introduces the purpose of the notebook and the sections they will use to divide their notebook.

Gail meets for the second time with this fourth grade class to continue to set up their writing notebook. In this video, Gail models how she creates a list from things she is interested in and knows a lot about. She discusses narrowly focused ideas, like her daughter's messy desk or her Grandmothers soft hand. After the discussion the students go back to their seats to generate lists of their own.

In this third video Gail talks about how writing fluency and stamina can come to a screeching halt when a student doesn't know how to spell a word. To address this, Gail shows a group of fourth graders an important strategy that will allow them to mark it and keep going. It's a strategy that will work well to mark words that may deserve revision later on, too.  

In the fourth video, Gail introduces a new section of the Writer's Notebook called Happenings. Happenings move students from the narrowly focused writing they've been doing by capturing small moments of their lives, to thinking about big topics that might be rich with stories.  

Finally, Gail and Joan talk about writers notebooks and share thinking from their most recent professional reading on the subject.