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My colleague and next-door-classroom-neighbor Leanna and I were eating and grading writer’s notebooks together at lunchtime today.  I got to the second notebook in my stack and said, “She’s gotta be kidding me!” “What?” Leana asked. “She wrote me,” I stopped feeling something between annoyance and anger, “letters.” I have this thing about writer’s notebooks not being about [...]

Katie asked: How often do you collect and look at notebooks or are you doing it as you conference with students? I rarely read through a student’s notebook during a Writing Conference.  The reason is that I want to use the conference time to talk with them about their writing, what they’re working on at that very [...]

Mrs. V. left the following comment yesterday: “Thanks for your details. Could you tell me more about their idea notebook nightly assignment? What are the requirements and how do you assess it? Also, about how much time in class are you able to spend on writing per week?” My students have the same writing homework each and every [...]

Yesterday, Katie left the following comment: Stacey is there a post or can you post your process for students’ writing. What I mean is where do they draft, what do you collect and look at etc. I see them drafting a lot in their notebooks, do they draft there and then move to final draft or [...]

Are you planning to host a Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC) in your classroom during the month of March?  If so, here are some basic tools to launch it this-coming Sunday, 3/1/09. #1) Send home an announcement about the SOLSC this week.  Here’s an example of the one I’m sending home, which looks a lot [...]

Naomi Leon keeps lists. Lots of them. However, she’s not real. Our students are real and quite frankly need to be taught the power in keeping lists. Over at my classroom blog, I’m suggesting that my students keep a variety of ongoing lists in their Idea Notebooks. Hence, if and when they [...]

We’ve been using Slide a lot around here lately! So, here’s yet another Slide Show of the literacy events as they unfolded in my classroom today.

My students will be getting idea notebooks early in the school year. By late September, they’ll also possess five-subject writer’s notebooks, which they’ll use expressly for units of study. (Click here to read more about idea notebooks.) Hence, I spent the early hours of my morning affixing tips, poems, section guides, and [...]