Publishing Notebook Entries
Writer’s notebooks are filled with seed ideas, drafts, and experimentation, not published pieces of writing. My students do not edit and revise the pieces in their notebooks unless it is part of a mini-lesson or conference . That said, as I read through their notebooks I often find gems that beg to be shared with a wider audience than our classroom. With the students’ permission, I type several notebook entries (correcting conventions when necessary) onto the back of our class newsletter each week. We call it “Classroom Originals”. My students love to see their work published in the newsletter, and I find that it motivates them to put forth more effort in their notebooks.
