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Notebook Work

The illustrated/photo autobiography

I start the school year with an immersion in notebook writing. I ask students to complete a five-page autobiography in words, pictures, and/or drawings to gather thinking and ideas for possible writing topics.

Autobiography, Part II: Point of View

A central goal in leading writers is to help them understand the power of point of view. In this case I took a photograph similar to one from my 5-page autobiography and changed the point of view to third person. This unleashed a freedom in my writing that I hadn’t found before.

Sketching: The Importance of Drawing to Activate Thinking

I have included the goals for this work from my white board in my classroom one fall. I learned about the importance of sketching and writing from my friend Linda Rief.

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Writing Beside Poetry for September 11

To commemorate this day I gave students three poems to write from. Many glued them into their notebooks as I did.

Writing Beside Poetry: “Hands”
by Sarah Kay

The Sarah Kay poem “Hands" (in Spoken Word Poetry videos) has
often led me to experiments with the idea of writing about
moments that involve touch.

Writing Beside Song Lyrics

We studied music lyrics as poetry and moments in our lives
connected to music this month.

Writing Beside Literature: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Writing in response to literature is often about working to understand more deeply what a writer is doing in a text by imitating or standing next to part of the text and working out our own thinking about the ideas there.

Illustrated Quotations

I encourage students to find a quotation in a book they are currently reading that is important to them or says something important about living. We add these to the graffiti wall in our classroom—something I learned
from my friend, Donalyn Miller. Many also illustrate these quotations for their notebooks.

Creating a Chart to Reflect Information

The Op-Ed chart from the New York Times in 2010, "Picturing the Past 10 Years,” was not only fascinating to read, but was one of the first infographics I wanted to imitate.

Writing Around Poetry

We write next to poetry almost every day in my classroom. Poetry distills images and word choice and captures big ideas in small spaces, as I tell my students. It is an ideal text to study because we can reread it several times and see more as we do.

Using a Storyboard to Plan Writing

As I detailed in the article on Storyboarding,  this brainstorming work
helps students focus on scenes or moments in time that can be developed into a story.

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