“I love the idea of writer’s notebooks,” she sighed. “The problem is, my students begin using them with the best of intentions at the start of every school year, but by the end, they’ve been neglected. I send home empty writers’ notebooks nearly every year. It’s such a waste. I think I’ll just let the whole thing go.” Don’t do that. Notebooks are far too important to abandon, and it takes time to tap their…
“You observe an effect, then build a theory to fit the observation. It may be faster to memorize facts than to experience them, but I would argue that you don’t really own that fact. ‘Hot’ is a pretty abstract concept until you’ve burned yourself.” Mark Hatch, The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers Teaching is all about learning, and learning is all about research. This reality…
Celebration is a cornerstone of traditional writing workshop models. Here, writers share their work with eager audiences, typically in their local school communities. Exhibition differs celebration in important ways. Here, learners are encouraged to share works in process instead of completed products. Rather than rewarding writers for their work, we invite them to reflect aloud on their process, the challenges they faced and met, and how they would continue to improve the work, if given…
How often do you invite the writers you support to reflect, and for what purposes? In my experience, it’s common for teachers to place reflective work at the end of the process, when drafts are complete. It makes sense to ask writers to look back at their work and their processes in order to define critical learning moments and set new goals. This is a great way to help writers develop a relationship with reflection,…
This year marks my twentieth year keeping notebooks with writers. I’ve only been satisfied with the quality of our notebook keeping for about two years though. This is how that happened: Thanks to this pin, elementary writers at the WNY Young Writer’s Studio now divide their notebooks into categories, reserving a specific number of pages for their work within each. It’s making for far more intentional use, and even more importantly, it’s enabling even our…