Writer's workshop sets the tone for a great writing environment that has a lasting impression on young writers. The writer's notebook, in my opinion, is the most important tool in writer's workshop. I am going to walk you through how I set up our notebooks.
What do I need?
spiral or composition notebooks
divider tabs
old magazines
scissors
glue
Where do I begin?
On day one we are usually busy sorting school supplies and getting organized for the new year with our new students. I like to show the kiddos my writer's notebook and do a minilesson on how important writer's notebooks are to writers.
My notebook is well-loved to say the least! I collect magazines and let the students spend the first day personalizing their notebook while I am busy collecting school supplies and getting organized. We also use this time to talk, and I answer any questions they have. This usually gets them really excited about writing.
The inside of our notebooks are organized into sections.
Dedication
The very first page is a dedication page. Student's dedicate their notebooks too!
Bellringer
My next section is reserved for our daily bellringer. We reserve 10 pages. I give them grammar to work for the first 5 minutes when they first arrive in the classroom. This gets them seated and started right away.
My Ideas
Our ideas section is the next section in our notebook. We reserve 5 pages. This is where students record writing ideas to use throughout the school year. We begin a few pages the first week of school just to get them started, but it is very important to set aside time throughout the year for students to go back and record new writing ideas!
One year I had a student tell me that he didn't love anything. That sparked the idea to record things that we do not like, ha! Let me tell you, some of the best stories came from things they do not like!
My Writing
The next section of our notebook is reserved for their writing. This is where we do all of our planning, rough drafts, revising, and editing. One helpful tip: When you teach a minilesson on a particular skill, have students go back to an old rough draft and try the skill. This allows every student to practice the skill no matter where they currently are in the writing process! This is also a great way to teach students how to edit and revise. Highlighters come in very handy!
Notes
I start my next section on the next to the last page of the notebook. I have students work through their notebook backwards recording notes. This gives them plenty of room for their writing section.
Goals
The last section of our notebook is the goals section. We only reserve the last page. As students write, I walk around and spend a few minutes with different students looking at and discussing their writing. This is our writing conference. While I record student goals on our conference sheet, I think it is important for students to keep track of their personal writing goal as well. For instance, if a student is using the word and several times throughout their story, we discuss the need for a variety of "glue" words aka transitions. We make a list of words they could use instead of and in their goal section. Then when they are revising, they can go to that section and revise for the word and. I use my goal section to record minilesson ideas that I see need to be addressed based on what I see as I confer.
One last note.
Students do not publish every piece of writing. When they do, their published writing goes on a separate sheet of paper and is placed in their writing binder.
Well this pretty much sums up how we set up our classroom writing notebooks. I hope this gives you some ideas on how to set up yours! If you have any questions or any other great ideas for writer's notebooks please comment below. :)
Happy notebooking!
Natalie
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