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Writers Workshop: Journals & Writers Notebooks
better journal-keeping means better portfolio pieces during writers workshop Has this ever happened to you? It's the last week of school after a full year of having students write daily in their journals, students have been cleaning out their desks and cubbies, and you find several journals tossed in the trash can after school? Or worse yet, a student actually approaches you with a journal in hand and asks, "Can I throw this away now?" This would be evidence that you have not taught your students to love their journals, and this page has been set up to share ideas from teachers who try their hardest to make the journal something each student is proud to keep and write in daily. At WritingFix, we believe that journals are a critical piece in a successful classroom writing workshop. A writers workshop environment, as you probably know, gives students the freedon to write about what's personally important to them. A journal is a place where students can explore those ideas that feel important in a non-threatening way. When students love their journals, they have a positive place to look for the next topic they'll take through the writing process. A great writers workshop experience, we believe, starts in a journal and ends in a published piece that goes into a student's portfolios.
And hey...let your students decorate their journals. And not just the cover, though that's a great start. Allow them to decorate and personalize the pages and margins. Before they write, require them to draw a three-inch by three-inch box on their page, then write around the box; when they've written for ten or fifteen minutes, allow them to go back and draw a picture in that space that goes along with what they've written. These are simple ideas that--when used regularly--should encourage your students to actually look back at their completed pages with delight. They'll laugh, first, at their decorations, and then they'll re-read what they've written. If they like the writing they find, they should be encouraged to develop the journal's idea into a rough draft they can being to writers workshop. Please enjoy these resources, all designed to help your students find love in their journals' pages. |
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So why don't our students love their journals? In Northern Nevada, we see a lot of students being required to keep them, we see teachers assign a lot of daily topics or sponges for them, but we hear a lot of moaning come from the students as they pull them out and fill their pages. We believe that if students are allowed to 1) personalize their journals more and to 2) choose topics to write about, the "moan factor" begins to decrease. It's important to have a daily topic ready to go for those students who need that extra push to write (and our 
Mr. Stick...your Journal's Margin Mascot |
Books to Inspire Better Journal Keeping |
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Hello, my name is Corbett Harrison, and during a really boring class I had to take once, I invented Mr. Stick. I never could draw very well, but I could make a pretty elaborate stick figure. I started sketching Mr. Stick in my class notebook, and I made him say funny things to me (in dialogue bubbles) about the information that was in my notes. Even though the class was boring, I ended up loving the notes I took for that class because they were decorated. It occurred to me that Mr. Stick--whom I had by then dubbed my Margin Mascot, since that's where he lived on the pages--would be a great tool for my students. I not only created a series of resources that helped my students use Mr. Stick (in their journals' margins) creatively and effectively but I put those materials into a packet that I began presenting to my fellow teachers in 1997. I probably presented that Mr. Stick Demonstration three dozen times over the years, and I still get called "Mr. Stick" by friends and colleagues. In the space below, I am sharing I am sharing some of my favorite Mr. Stick resources. I have been considering putting a complete collection of all my Mr. Stick materials into a packet that I will make available at my own website. I'll let you know if and when I have such a packet to share. |
Want a free classroom resource from the NNWP? We're looking for teacher-written reviews of mentor texts that would inspire students to want to keep (and love their) classroom journals. If you know of a book that hasn't been reviewed yet on this page, send us your review. If we use it, we'll send you any of the publications found on the NNWP's Publications Page. Book reviews can be sent to us at webmaster@writingfix.com. Look at the reviews already posted below for ideas on what we're looking for. These three example reviews were written during a writers workshop inservice offered in Northern Nevada in 2006 and a narrative writing inservice in 2009. Both classes were offered by the Northern Nevada Writing Project.
The beauty of this mentor text is that it is published to look like a real composition book. We see Amelia's handwriting. We see the lines and margins one might see in a real journal. Amelia decorates the pages with drawings, side-bars, and artifacts. When I share this text with my students, they realize they're getting permission to decorate and personalize their writing, which is such a simple (but necessary) step in helping students love their journals. Be sure to point out how Amelia writes about everyday kind of experiences and observation. Fights with her sister, the shape of people's noses, and cafeteria food are some of the topics she explores in her journal. This young journal keeper shows those students who think their lives are uninteresting that everything that happens can be written in an interesting way with an interesting voice. The Amelia sequels that followed the success of the original are all great too. My personal favorite is the one where Amelia and her family go on a road trip and And if Amelia doesn't inspire your boy writers, Marissa Moss has another delightful book to add to your mentor text library: Max's Logbook. Max is a bit more scientific and imaginative than Amelia (who focuses on narrative), but he writes and decorates his own ideas, and this could very well spark the imaginations of your reluctant boys!
A writer's notebook is a tool every writer should use. In its pages, a writer experiments with ideas and writing styles in a non-threatening way. A writer's notebook is like a journal or a diary, except that it relies rarely on daily narrations to fill its pages. Instead of daily accounts, each page in the writer's notebook can focus on a topic--past, present, or future--that the writer would like to some day explore more extensively; the notebook's writer explores topics in brain-friendly and creative ways. I like to compare a writer's notebook to an artist's sketchbook. Artists fill their sketchbooks' pages with rough drawings of randomly seen things they may or may not use in paintings someday. Topics in a writer's notebook should be thought of as rough sketches, attempts by the writer to gain more perspective in a manner that isn't permanent and is totally disposable, if the writer chooses to never use it. If you've never attempted to keep a writer's notebook, get this little book by Fletcher. It'll inspire big ideas in your classroom.
I have found that my students can really relate to Greg and are always eager to hear his stories. For instance, on page 36, Greg sneaks down to listen to his brother’s CD and he gets caught by his dad. Greg finds himself in a heap of trouble when his dad calls him “friend,” which Greg knows is not a good sign. A memoir prompt for this part of the book might be something like, “Have you every done something you know you shouldn’t have and you got caught? What happened?” If students are unwilling to confess, then try, “Have you every done something that you know you shouldn’t have and you got away with it (didn’t get caught)? What happened?” My students absolutely love this book and there are numerous memoir prompts that can be used to help students tap into their memorable moments. The series includes two other books that are chalked with many other “situations/experiences” that the students can also relate to and enjoy. After reading and sharing a journal entry from the book, I have the students brainstorm their own ideas. To engage them further, I have the students share with a partner, group or whole group. I give them time to discuss their personal stories as part of the brainstorming session. Often, students will remember a story of their own by hearing the stories of others. I have them write two to four ideas during their brainstorming sessions. Once they have a few ideas, I have them choose one idea to transform into a longer piece or narrative writing. The students must make sure the writing piece has details that create an image and contain voice. The piece must sound like them and have their energy.
If you have a mentor text that inspires your students to keep better journals, write a review and send it to us. If we post it, we'll send you one of the NNWP's Print Publications for your classroom. Send reviews to webmaster@writingfix.com. |
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Establishing a Margin Mascot for Journals:
Using Mr. Stick outside the Margins:
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Prewriting with Mr. Stick in my Students' Mythology Journals |
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By far, the best experience I ever had with Mr. Stick was the year they asked me to teach a semester-long course on mythology. My objective for my high school students was to not only familiarize them with the great stories from myth, but to turn them into story-tellers who could retell the stories accurately but also embellish their own details into their retellings. The stories they learned to retell out loud became their choices for writing down during that class's writers workshop.
I came to call our Mr. Stick mythology journals Cave-Wall Journals, because when we flipped through them at semester's end, they resembled cave hieroglyphics with notes underneath them. My students completely enjoyed looking back in their journals, and I invented a whole bunch of new assignments for them to apply to their journals' pages. I still run into former students these days who tell me they still had their journals from that class! That summer, the Northern Nevada Writing Project asked me to present My Cave-Wall Journal materials to their Summer Open class, and it was a hit with the teachers, who then used the techniques all summer long in the journals they were being asked to keep as part of that class. For the next six years, I presented Mr. Stick to the Open during their first week of class. In 2009, after a five year hiatus, I was asked back to present Mr. Stick to the Open, which still happens every summer, and that is how this section on this page came about; I decided it was time to put Mr. Stick on-line for anyone who wants him! Below are examples of a number of the special assignments I designed for my mythology students' cave-wall journals. I've used them in other classes I've taught--not just for myth--but I only have examples for mythology. The examples are scanned copies of xeroxes made back in the 1990's. They're readable for the most part, but you will get the big idea behind each one, which is why I included it.
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