Great recipes never come to fruition without our commitment to roll up our sleeves and get to work in the kitchen, and great writing never gets produced without our commitment to put our pens to the page regularly and collect ideas that become the inspiration for our future work.
Writing Workshop provides students the time and space to collect ideas, reflect on them, and develop them—and their primary tool is their Writer’s Notebook. Below, I share some ideas on how to get started with a Writer’s Notebook from my chapter in Responsive Literacy: A Comprehensive Framework.
By guiding and encouraging students to write in their notebooks every day during the first few weeks of school—sometimes creating two, three, or four entries per day—they will begin to grow and to bloom as writers. Students who are reluctant to write find that the Writer’s Notebook is low risk: Typically, each entry is completed as a quick-write, taking five to 10 minutes to complete. They may respond in authentic ways to a topic teachers initiate or to a topic of their choice without worrying about getting something wrong—writers are either planting new ideas or incubating others that have potential. Moreover, students discover that sharing their writing at the end of the Writing Workshop is an opportunity to connect with peers who share similar interests and experiences and get encouragement to continue developing their writing from a range of perspectives. All in all, it’s a rewarding way to learn to write!
Here are 10 prompts students can choose from to begin developing and recording their ideas in their Writer’s Notebook:
1. Draw a self-portrait.
2. Make a map of your bedroom, house, or neighborhood.
3. Write about a special time in your life.
4. Glue in a fortune from a fortune cookie and respond to it.
5. List the best things that have happened in your life.
6. List family stories or traditions that have been passed down.
7. Tell about a time you laughed super hard.
8. Make a web of vacations and special moments.
9. Sketch an observation in your yard or neighborhood.
10. Write memories related to a favorite object.
This is just a short list of possibilities you and your students can choose from to begin the writing process. Any may be modified to suit the needs, interests, and experiences of your writers. Additionally, consider adding options that are generated by students. Once students have fully engaged in the process of writing in their Writer’s Notebooks, they become more adept at adding their own self-initiated entries.
To learn more about Responsive Literacy: A Comprehensive Framework, you can purchase the book here.
About the Author: Wendy Sheets is a Literacy Collaborative Trainer at The Ohio State University, where she provides professional development for teachers, literacy coaches, and literacy leadership teams. Her experience includes classroom teaching, coaching, and Reading Recovery training.