WW+Essentials-The+Writer's+Notebook

=The Writer's Notebook: The Basic Tool of the Writer =

Keep a notebook and write //**__ Every Day __**//.
Professional writers keep notebooks and try to write in them every day--much like an artist and her sketchbooks. Much of what is put into the notebook never sees the light of day, but it is the discipline of writing every day that helps writers figure out what they are thinking about.

[|Jack Gantos on Keeping a Journal] =// Introducing Students to Notebooks //= === In years past, Lucy Calkins, Nancy Atwell, and Shelley Harwayne would get kids writing and thinking of topics the first day, but with older kids, according to Randy Bomer, things need to "stoke"--there needs to be a gradual collection that begins to form itself. So, spend a lot of time in the beginning to build up the notebook--its contents and its importance. ===

//** Tips: **//

 * === Students' notebooks should represent their personalities. ===
 * === Students who may lose or forget their notebooks ought to get a loose-leaf binder, which will stay in class, and a "traveling" notebook with detachable three-holed sheets. ===
 * === Tie work in the notebook to a grade //(More on that later.)// ===

// The First Day: How Do You Begin? //

 * ==// Get them writing immediately. I often start with childhood memories--the ones that stand out, maybe because they were horrible or wonderful. That's the mini-lesson for the day. Then I send them to share theirs in a small group--or whole group if they're comfortable. Then we (me, too!) all get to writing. //==
 * ==// We may share again in a whole group setting before the period is up--to get them used to sharing. //==

=Donald Graves: On Getting Students to Write= =media type="youtube" key="cZ_sXJKiiSA" height="470" width="710"=

=Early mini-lessons: =


 * analogies to artists, musicians
 * the difference between a journal, diary, and a writer's notebook
 * examples of what to collect--from my own notebook and from others
 * Childhood memories --get the kids talking--a lot! Start with your own memories in a whole group setting. Then split students into small groups to share memories that arose as a result of teacher's memory. Then move back to whole group. Tip: Teenagers more comfortable in small groups, initially.
 * Freewrites
 * Authority Lists
 * Check List for a Subject
 * how to use it as a place for thinking, not just recording
 * in reaction to something we've seen, read, heard
 * as a way to discover WHAT we're thinking about. For example, even if nothing prompted them, some writers will sit down and just start writing/thinking on paper, accepting whatever comes to them.
 * == William Stafford writes: To get started, I will accept anything that occurs to me. Something always occurs, of course, to any of us. We can't keep from thinking. Maybe I have to settle for an immediate impression. . . . If I put down something, that thing will help the next thing come, and I'm off. If I let the process go on, things will occur to me that were not at all in my mind when I started. These things, odd or trivial as they may be, are somehow connected. And if I let them string out, surprising things will happen . . . I am headlong to discover" (Bomer 48).==


 * == Natalie Goldberg writes: Our bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grinds, and old steak bones of our minds come nitrogen, heat and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories. But this does not come all at once. It takes time. Continue to turn over the organic details of your life until some of them fall through the garbage of discursive thoughts to the solid ground of black soil. Rake over your shallow thinking and turn it over. If we continue to work with this raw matter, it will draw us deeper and deeper into ourselves. . . . (Bomer 49).==

//Types of Notebook Entries//
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=Types of Notebook Entries =
 * ==memories==
 * ==reflections--self-definition==
 * ==noticings about the world--observations==
 * ==wonderings--questions==
 * ==speculation about meaning of events==
 * ==reading response==
 * ==snippets of language==
 * ==clippings==
 * ==pictures==
 * ==images that stick in the mind==
 * ==lists==
 * ==experiments with really long and really short sentences==
 * ==ideas for stories--kernels==
 * ==family stories==
 * ==dreams==
 * ==descriptions==
 * ==experiments with genre or style==
 * ==freewrites==
 * ==information==
 * ==revision of thinking==
 * ==quotations==
 * ==interviews==
 * ==sensory impressions==
 * ==copied text==
 * ==caught poetry and found poetry==
 * ==decision making==
 * ==overheard conversations==
 * ==imagined dialogue==
 * ==plans==
 * ==personal descriptions/profiles==
 * ==writing again about something from an old entry==

Checklist for a Subject (Taken from Donald Murray)

 * ==What surprised me recently?==
 * ==What do I need to know?==
 * ==What would I like to know?==
 * ==How are things different from how they used to be?==
 * ==How will things be different in the future?==
 * ==What have we lost?==
 * ==What have we gained?==
 * ==What do I know that others need to know?==
 * ==Whom would I like to get to know?==
 * ==What's not happening that should?==
 * ==What's happening that shouldn't?==
 * ==Whom would I like to see at work?==
 * ==What process do I need to know?==
 * ==What process would be fun to observe?==
 * ==How can I switch my position so I will see my world differently?==
 * ==What have I read, hear, thought that confuses me?==
 * ==How are people's behaviors changing?==
 * ==What makes me mad? Sad? Happy? Worried? Frightened? Content?==
 * ==Why?==

<span style="background-color: #ffff00; color: #000080; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Authority Lists
<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">What am I an expert on?

<span style="background-color: #ffff00; color: #000080; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 150%;">Boosting Students' Use of Notebooks Outside the Classroom

 * <span style="background-color: #60ff00; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Assign as homework: Five entries/week, two of which had to be at least one page long and take at least 1/2 hour to write. Purpose: To force them to see their worlds differently.

<span style="background-color: #ffff00; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Sequence of Notebook Mini-Lessons
<span style="background-color: #60ff00; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">
 * <span style="background-color: #60ff00; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">How to use a notebook/creating a variety of entries
 * <span style="background-color: #60ff00; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Using the notebook to find a topic


 * <span style="background-color: #fdafef; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Reread notebook, circling those things that spark the student's interest.
 * <span style="background-color: #fdafef; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Reread notebook, circling those things that seem to be related, things that appear repeatedly.

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 * <span style="background-color: #60ff00; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Collecting information on that topic


 * <span style="background-color: #fdafef; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">More focused brainstorming, freewriting
 * <span style="background-color: #fdafef; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Five-sense brainstorms for developing a scene or description
 * <span style="background-color: #fdafef; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Focusing on what one wants to say
 * <span style="background-color: #fdafef; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">For each idea, ask: Why is this important to me? Choose the one I write the most about.

<span style="background-color: #ffff00; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Increasing the Quality of Notebooks

 * <span style="background-color: #60ff00; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Volume
 * <span style="background-color: #60ff00; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Variety
 * <span style="background-color: #60ff00; font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif; font-size: 160%;">Thoughtfulness