Writer's Notebook

I was first introduced to the concept of a writer’s notebook last Christmas when we were back in Georgia visiting family. Jeff’s (my partner) dad is a retired English teacher from a wonderful private school there and was nice enough to arrange a school tour AND put me in contact with a colleague of his during our visit. She told me about one of the tools that they use in language arts called a writer’s notebook and right away I loved this idea. I  wanted to learn more about it so I bought the books she recommended and have been using them in my classroom ever since.

The idea  behind the writer's notebook comes from research done by RalphFletcher and it just makes sense. Here's what we know about writers:
* Writers are different.
*Writers use different processes.
* Writers need time and tools to develop their writing skills.
Although these ideas are basic, we tend to forget to take them into account when planning our lessons at times. Ralph Fletcher gets to the heart of these challenges and makes it make sense... if that makes any sense. His books are brilliant and have totally changed my approach to teaching writing. I highly recommend them if you are struggling with teaching writing.

Anyway, like most things in my class, I wanted to provide my students with a real-life example to help them better understand my expectations and get them started with creating their own writer's notebooks. Here’s a short video that I created for you to see my example and a slideshow of some of my pages. If you have any suggestions of how you’ve used the writer’s notebook in your class, please share them. Happy Writing!