Writer’s Notebook

I am very excited to learn new ways to help our students write. I realize that writing does not come easily to everyone. A very good friend of mine is trying to avoid taking any English courses in college because writing is a difficult task for her and she has a fear of trying to document her thoughts. For this reason I was very impressed with our text Notebook Know-How. This is a textbook that was written by a teacher who has been in the classroom and had to discover ways to help her students gain a love of writing. Then she took her techniques and recorded to give other teachers possible ways to help their students as well.

I believe a writer’s notebook can serve many purposes. First, it gives a student a place where they can freely record their thoughts. If they are having a bad day and need a release they can write their feelings down. Second, students can learn the art of writing in their notebooks. With help from their teachers and through continuously writing, they can master grammatical and punctuation techniques. Also, by writing consistently students go from a mentality of “having nothing to write about” to writing about whatever topic they so choose. 

My goal as a teacher is to making writing an enjoyable experience for everyone. This is why I liked the idea of giving the students a topic such as their best experience ever and letting them create a list of things that had happened to them. Then they have ideas of stories they can tell in their writer’s notebook. This makes writing personal for each student instead of asking them to write from a prompt. I was also impressed with the idea of using class discussions (and the teacher waiting patiently) as a way to help a topic for writing to be revealed. There is not a more perfect time to have students record their thoughts then when they have a story that they must tell.

Advertisement