The following children’s books all feature notebook-like writing:

Many writers like to keep writer’s notebooks handy so they can jot down “seed” ideas whenever they pop into their heads.  I encourage students to do the same. The writer’s notebook is a staple in my writing classroom, probably our most important writing tool.  It is a place for my students to free write on mostly self-selected topics, a place for them to explore seed ideas which may later be taken to publication.  It is also a place for my students to practice revising their writing using the craft techniques we learn through mentor text mini-lessons. 

In his book Mechanically Inclined Jeff Anderson (2005) describes the writer’s notebook as a “playground for writing”. He says “I let students have recess on the page, the sweet freedom to romp with thoughts, cavort with commas, and monkey around with syntax.  What better playground do we have than the writer’s notebook?  This is the repository, the organizer, the placeholder, the idea catcher, the canvas to experiment and create , the place to be wrong and to be wrong boldly.  It is a place to return—to mine and refine, polish and relish, reread and rewrite.”

To get students excited about using the notebooks, I read aloud or paraphrase portions of Ralph Fletcher’s A Writer’s Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You.  Fletcher explains that “writers are like other people, except for at least one important difference.  Other people have daily thoughts and feelings, notice this sky or that smell, but they don’t do much about it.  All those thoughts, feelings, sensations, and opinions pass through them like the air they breathe.  Not writers.  Writers react.” (Ralph Fletcher, 1996).

Benefits of Notebook Writing:

• Promotes fluency in writing and reading
• Encourages risk taking
• Provides opportunities for reflection
• Validates personal experiences and feelings
• Promotes thinking and makes it visible
• Promotes development of written language conventions
• Provides a vehicle for evaluation
• Provides a written record of students’ literacy learning

With so many books filling the shelves of bookstores and libraries, how do we begin to select the right mentor texts for our mini-lessons?  The truth is, there isn’t just one right text that will do the trick.  As Katie Wood Ray explains in  Wondrous Words, writing style is individual but it is not unique.  In other words, a close look at the writing of many different authors reveals that authors use the same techniques or crafts.  As we begin to “read like a writer” we notice that there are more similarities than differences.  While there is not one right mentor text for each craft we hope to teach, some texts are obviously more effective than others.  Below is some criteria that can aid in selecting mentor texts (Nia, 1999 and Wood, 1999):

• Picture books and other short pieces are ideal for mentor texts.
• You have read the text and you love it.
• You and your students have talked about the text as readers first.
• You find many things to teach in the text:
• Ways with words; powerful language
• Interesting structures
• Interesting ideas or writing concepts
• Conventions
• You can imagine talking about the text for a very long time.
• Your entire class can have access to the text.
• Your students can read the text independently or with some support.
• The text is a little more sophisticated than the writing of your best students.
• The text is written by a writer you trust.
• The text is a good example of a particular kind of writing (genre).
• The text is of a genre you are studying.
• It has background information included.
• It reminds you of other texts.

Ultimately we want to be able to select our own mentor texts, but  when we’re just getting started, it is helpful to have some lists to rely on.  See  mentor text websites and professional books for resources that list quality mentor texts. 

The optimal learning model takes Vygotsky’s ideas and puts theory into practice. In this research-based model, the responsibility for task completion shifts gradually over time from the teacher to the student. The following steps describe this shift:

1. Teacher Modeling: Explain the strategy, demonstrate how to use it, and think aloud while demonstrating.
2. Guided Practice: Practice using the strategy with students during shared writing and mini-lessons. Allow students to share their thinking processes. Give feedback and support. Gradually release responsibility to students.
3. Independent Practice: Students try to apply the strategy on their own, receiving feedback from teacher and other students.
4. Application of the Strategy: Students apply the strategy in a new format or more difficult text.

When we employ mentor texts as part of our writing instruction, we work through this recursive process of modeling, guiding, and providing practice, as students progress from noticing what mentor authors do to envisioning using these crafts themselves to finally incorporating these techniques in their own writing.

The mini-lessons described on the previous pages are considered “craft” lessons.  They equip young writers with techniques used by professional writers.  With practice students can learn to use these techniques effectively to create their own literature.   Using craft techniques effectively, however, is not enough.  Students must also become competent at using language conventions correctly in order to successfully communicate with the reader.  Instruction on language conventions consists of three main components:
1.    Direct instruction on specific language conventions
2.    Practice and application of these skills
3.    Self-editing writing to make corrections or revisions

Conventions Mini-lessons
The most effective conventions lessons will be those drawn from the needs of students.  When you notice several students struggling with a particular skill, that is a good time to introduce the skill (direct instruction) to the entire class.  Typical mini-lessons that need to be taught (and re-taught) during the elementary years include:
?    Ending punctuation
?    Capitalization rules (sentence beginnings, proper nouns, titles)
?    Comma rules
?    Punctuating dialogue
?    Apostrophe, hyphen, dash, colon, semi-colon
?    Suffix rules: when to double the consonant, when to drop the e, when to change the y to i before adding –es
?    Homonym confusions (especially there-their-they’re, it’s-its, your-you’re, to-too-two)
?    When to use pronouns me or I
?    When to indent a new paragraph
?    The difference between possessive and plural nouns

Interactive Writing
Interactive writing is an excellent way to introduce emerging writers to writing conventions.  See pp. 6-7 for a complete description.

Traveling Books
Traveling books provide a motivating way to introduce young writers to a variety of language conventions.  See pp. 13-22 for explanation and directions.

Importance of Punctuation
Ask students to list reasons why they think correct punctuation is important in a piece of writing.  Read aloud Punctuation Takes a Vacation by Robin Pulver.  Have students guess which punctuation mark has “written” the postcard on each page.  After reading it, give pairs of students a copy of a page from the book and have them add the correct punctuation back in.

Skip Lines
Have students skip spaces between lines and write on only one side of the page when they are drafting.  This allows room for editing and revision changes and allows students to physically cut apart and paste a draft without cutting apart text on the back.

Reading Backwards
Have students check for spelling errors by reading their drafts backwards.  This forces them to focus on each individual word rather than getting caught up in the meaning of the sentence and possibly skipping over errors.

Error Hunt
Ask students to begin a class collection of errors that they find in published work, on signs, in newsletters or newspapers.   Have them bring their finds in to share with the class.  Check out this book for your own pleasure reading:  Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss.  Share the children’s version with your students:  Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference!  by Lynne Truss. 

Magic Lines
This technique helps young writers remember to leave spaces between words.  It also helps emerging writers separate the text into manageable units that they are then able to “stretch out” and attempt to spell.  Begin by having the student decide on a sentence of text.  Then have him count the number of words in the text on his fingers.  Next have the student draw the appropriate number of lines on the paper—one line for each word.  Once the lines are drawn, the child may begin stretching out the sounds in the words and writing them on the magic lines. (Schaefer, 2001)

Conventions  Conferences
If a mini-lesson has been taught and a child is still not using the skill correctly, it is time for a one-on-one conference.  I have found it effective to use my students’ journals for conventions conferences.  The pieces written in their journals are not taken through the entire writing process; that is, they are not edited and revised for publication.  Instead, I use the journals as a diagnostic and teaching tool for language conventions (and sometimes for writer’s craft).  When I collect journals, I make anecdotal notes on the student’s evaluation form (see pp. 127-128) in my assessment notebook.  In the second column I record skills the child demonstrates s/he is consistently using correctly.  In the third column I record skills that I need to teach or re-teach.  When I meet with that child for an individual conference, I select 2-3 teaching points from that third column and work with the student on just those skills.  I then ask the student to proofread a page in his journal, looking for and correcting only the targeted skill/s.  If there are other serious errors on the page, those will become the focus of a future conference.

Overhead Celebrations 
Celebrate successes by showing positive examples of convention usage by displaying student work on the overhead. (Wagstaff, 1999)

I borrowed this phrase from BER presenter Diane Murphy.  She uses the phrase to describe the action she wants her students to use as they practice and learn the high frequency words on the word wall—bobbing their heads up and down as they look from the wall to their papers.  The practice activities listed below help students learn to read and write irregularly spelled high frequency words.  As Regie Routman warns in her book Conversations, teachers need to “guard against encouraging even young students to invent spellings of common words such as, come, and like.  It’s not efficient for students to unlearn misspellings of words that they’ve been using over and over again.”  

Write, Clap, and Chant

Call out a word from the word wall.  Have students write the word and then clap and chant to check the spelling they have written.

Word Wall Chants

Review word wall words by having students chant the spellings in a variety of multi-modal ways.  Below are just a few favorites.  You can find more at the following website:  
http://k111.k12.il.us/lafayette/fourblocks/word_wall_chants.htm 
I write the name of each cheer on a small laminated notepad and place each sheet into a ziploc bag.  When we need to get up and move or when we’re transitioning to a new activity, I will pull a slip out of the bag and practice a couple of word wall words.
•    Snap and Clap – Snap the vowels; clap the consonants.
•    Ketchup – One hand open, the other hand closed; pound hands together like you would pound a bottle of ketchup.
•   Marshmallow Clap – Almost like a clap but you stop just before the hands touch for each letter.
•    Deep Voice – Say the letters and the word in a deep voice.
•    Mouse Talk – Squeaky voice with hands curled up by face.
•    Raise the Roof – Push up toward the ceiling, one push for each letter.
•    Throw the Stars – Throw one hand at a time up toward the ceiling for each letter.
•    Mexican Hat Dance – Alternate feet in front.
•    Motorcycle – Hang on to the pretend handle bars and do wheelies for each letter.
•    Dribble and Shoot – Dribble the letters and shoot the word.
•    Tigger Bounce – Bounce up and down for each letter.
•    Be the Letter – Like doing the YMCA song.
•    Jumping Jacks – One movement for each letter.
•    Frisbee – Throw each letter frisbee style.
•    The Swim – Swim the letters; hold your nose and go down at the end when you say the word.
•    Explosion – Start at a whisper; get louder with each letter; explode when you say the words at the end.

Ruler Tap

Call out a word and use a ruler to tap out several letters without saying those letters.  When the tapping stops, call on a child to finish spelling the word aloud.  If he finishes the word correctly, allow him to tap out the next word.

Daily Fast Writes

Give students a high frequency word to spell on individual white boards.  Have them refer to the high frequency word wall to confirm the spelling.  Then tell them:  “Write it.  Erase it.  Write it again.  Do it fast.”

Word Wall Sentences

After the word wall has quite a few words, dictate sentences that contain many of these words.  Have students write the sentences, referring to the word wall as necessary.

Be a Mind Reader

Have students number a paper or white board from 1 to 5.  Think of a word and give five clues.  After each clue students write a word from the word wall that they think matches the clues.  The first clue is always “It’s one of the words on the word wall.”
1.    It’s one of the words on the word wall.
2.    It has four letters.
3.    It begins with th.
4.    The vowel is an e.
5.    It finishes the sentence I gave my books to ___.

Evaporation

Give each student an individual white board and marker.  Select one student to use a paintbrush dipped in water to paint a word wall word on the chalkboard.  Students at their seats begin writing the word as many times as they can on their white boards.  While students are writing, the child at the chalkboard uses his white board to fan the word, getting it to evaporate.  The student who writes the word the most times earns a point.

Erase

This game is played like Evaporation but is adapted for classrooms with white boards instead of chalkboards.  Instead of using a wet paint brush, the student writes the word in very large letters on the white board and then erases it while the rest of the class writes the word on individual boards.

20 Questions (or however many students you have)

Select a word wall word but don’t reveal it to the class.  Students take turns asking one question each, trying to guess the word.  Each student must ask one question.  If a child knows the word, he may not say it until every student has asked one question.

Swat

Write several word wall words on the board. Divide the class into two teams.  Have one member from each team stand by the chalkboard with a flyswatter.  Dictate words or give clues to words.  The first team member to swat the correct word earns a point for his team.  Students take turns being the swatter.

Flashlight

Just like Swat, only students use flashlights in a darkened room.

WORDO

Give each student a photocopied grid with 9, 16, or 25 squares.  Have students select words from the word wall.  As words are selected, write them on index cards while students write them anywhere on their grids.  When the grid is complete, shuffle the cards and begin calling out the words.  As each word is called out, have students chant the spelling and cover the word on their boards with small objects.  The first student to complete a row wins WORDO.

  WORDO

At the end of each grading period I ask students to reflect on their own reading and self-evaluate. This self-evaluation is then added to their portfolios.

Click on picture to enlarge. Download Reading Self-Evaluations

These reflections are used to help students set personal reading goals for the following grading period.  See Goal Setting Ideas.

"In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.  I learned who I was and who I wanted to be, what I might aspire to and what I might dare to dream about my world and myself."
                                                              –Ann Quindlen

"I love to travel, but when I really want to escape, I read a book."
                                                              –Jean Craighead George

"Readers don’t grow in trees.  But they are grown—in places where they are fertilized with lots of print, and above all, read to daily."
                                                               –Jim Trelease

"When I read a good book, it’s like traveling the world without ever leaving my chair."
                                                               –Richard Peck

"I love surprises!  That’s what is great about reading.  When you open a book, you never know what you’ll find."
                                                               –Jerry Spinelli

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body." 
                                                               –Joseph Addison

"Reading should be like your favorite dessert:  No matter how full you are, you can find room for it."
                                                                –Danny Brassell

"Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are."
                                                                –Mason Cooley

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island."
                                                                –Walt Disney

"To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul."
                                                                –Cicero

"Your reading muscles are like any other muscle in your body: inactivity prompts atrophy."
                                                                –Danny Brassell

"The person who does not read has no advantage over the person who cannot read."
                                                                –Mark Twain

"Books are passports to seeing the world."
                                                                –Danny Brassell

"Reading is not a duty, and has consequently no business to be made disagreeable."
                                                                –Augustine Birrell

"A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that you can take it to bed with you."
                                                                –Daniel Boorstein

"No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting."
                                                                 –Lady Montagu

I have found that using reading folders helps with the management aspects of reading workshop.  I purchase 2-pocket folders with grommets from Target or Wal Mart when they sell for a few pennies during the summer.  I color-code my folders for various subjects.  We use red for our reading folders. The following are the contents included in my reading folders:  

Reading Goals and Goal-Setting Ideas

Click to enlarge.

Rules for Reading Workshop

I introduce the rules for reading workshop during procedural mini-lessons during the launching unit of my reading workshop.

Reading Log

I photocopy one of these for each week of the school year.  Students record titles they read both at school and at home in the appropriate box–"S" for school "H" for home.  Students highlight complete books.

Books I Want to Read

I encourage students to always be on the lookout for books they want to read in the future.  If a book from one of my book talks or a student-led book chat piques their interests, they record the title on this form in their reading folders.

Genre List

Throughout the year I introduce various genres through our read-alouds, and we study the characteristics of each genre.  I expect my students to expand their reading diets throughout the year and read from a variety of genres during their independent reading as well.  They use this list of genre abbreviations when they record the books they have read on their daily reading logs.