Using the Writer's Notebook in the Writing Workshop
The second cycle will be
based on the action plan outlined in cycle 1 for implementing the writer's
notebook into the writing workshop and also adding mini-lessons that teach the
grammar lessons from the Journeys program.
Research:
I started researching the Writer's Notebook and deepening my understanding of the grammar in the journeys program.
I began cycle 2 looking at resources for teaching how to use the notebook through the workshop approach. I dipped right into chapter 3 Rehearsal in Luck Calkin's book, The Art of Teaching Writing New Edition. In this chapter she has a part title- The Writer's Notebook as a Tool for Rehearsal. In this part Lucy explains the use and purpose of the writer's notebook. "Throughout the field of teaching writing, one educator after another has begun to advocate that students jot down things they notice and wonder about, their memories and ideas, their favorite words and responses to reading into a container of some sort. Whether one calls them a day book, a bureau drawer, or a notebook they are, above all, places for rehearsal. They are seed beds out of which rough drafts grow." (Calkins, 1994 p.24) She goes on to say "When our youngsters begin the writing process by collecting bits and pieces- entries- in their notebooks rather than by listing and choosing among possible topics for writing, they are apt to experience writing as a process of growing meaning."(Calkins, 1994 p.24) These were the ideas that I wanted my writers to get from our work together in Writing Workshop.
I started researching the Writer's Notebook and deepening my understanding of the grammar in the journeys program.
I began cycle 2 looking at resources for teaching how to use the notebook through the workshop approach. I dipped right into chapter 3 Rehearsal in Luck Calkin's book, The Art of Teaching Writing New Edition. In this chapter she has a part title- The Writer's Notebook as a Tool for Rehearsal. In this part Lucy explains the use and purpose of the writer's notebook. "Throughout the field of teaching writing, one educator after another has begun to advocate that students jot down things they notice and wonder about, their memories and ideas, their favorite words and responses to reading into a container of some sort. Whether one calls them a day book, a bureau drawer, or a notebook they are, above all, places for rehearsal. They are seed beds out of which rough drafts grow." (Calkins, 1994 p.24) She goes on to say "When our youngsters begin the writing process by collecting bits and pieces- entries- in their notebooks rather than by listing and choosing among possible topics for writing, they are apt to experience writing as a process of growing meaning."(Calkins, 1994 p.24) These were the ideas that I wanted my writers to get from our work together in Writing Workshop.
I then began designing lessons that introduced my students to the notebook. I wanted the first lesson to focus on the importance of keeping a Writer’s Notebook and I wanted them to develop the importance of using it as a tool for capturing ideas.
In later units I wanted them to be able to “lift” the ideas out of their notebook to develop for writing topics within the unit.
These are writings from my two students about our trip to Compo Beach. These will later be used to show how to "lift" writing out of their notebook to use as a draft to go through the writing process.
In the launch I also wanted them to feel excited about their notebooks. I wanted a lesson that when they receive their notebooks it feels like a “gift” for them from me for their year of writing in 2nd grade!
I wanted them to realize the notebooks importance by treating them as special writing tools.
In a lesson I want them to personalize their notebook so that it is special for them. I want them to start at school and finish the personalizing at home. I would then put clear adhesive on them to keep them forever!
These are the notebooks from my two students that I collected data on. The students had each brought in the black and white journals that we collected on the first day of school. I decided that these would be better than buying the spiral notebooks that could come apart as the year progressed.
Once they actually started writing in the notebook I wanted them to remember all the storytelling work we did and I wanted them to begin with the ideas that they wrote on the brainstorming sheet.
Lastly I wanted to write a lesson that taught them how important it was to use the notebook at home and then bring it back the next day for writing in class.
In later units I wanted them to be able to “lift” the ideas out of their notebook to develop for writing topics within the unit.
These are writings from my two students about our trip to Compo Beach. These will later be used to show how to "lift" writing out of their notebook to use as a draft to go through the writing process.
In the launch I also wanted them to feel excited about their notebooks. I wanted a lesson that when they receive their notebooks it feels like a “gift” for them from me for their year of writing in 2nd grade!
I wanted them to realize the notebooks importance by treating them as special writing tools.
In a lesson I want them to personalize their notebook so that it is special for them. I want them to start at school and finish the personalizing at home. I would then put clear adhesive on them to keep them forever!
These are the notebooks from my two students that I collected data on. The students had each brought in the black and white journals that we collected on the first day of school. I decided that these would be better than buying the spiral notebooks that could come apart as the year progressed.
Once they actually started writing in the notebook I wanted them to remember all the storytelling work we did and I wanted them to begin with the ideas that they wrote on the brainstorming sheet.
Lastly I wanted to write a lesson that taught them how important it was to use the notebook at home and then bring it back the next day for writing in class.
Next, I closely read the
different teacher’s’ guides to help clarify the grammar idea in journeys. This is the thinking that I had behind my lessons. As my lessons were not part of the journeys program I had to make sure that my students were learning the grammar skills being taught in unit 1 in lessons 1-5. I looked at the time that I had to launch the notebook and the other lessons. From this I designed the amount of lessons that would fit into the time frame and allow me time for lifting some writing for publishing within the writing process. I wanted the grammar lessons to be part of the workshop model and the notebook so I had to design lessons that made them use their notebooks to help learn the grammar skills. I also had to make sure that I gave them time each day for writing so that they would have writing for the grammar lessons!
Reading
the journeys teacher handbooks and guides gave me the background knowledge that
I needed to understand their thinking about grammar. The Component that I will
use to integrate grammar into the writing lessons is the grammar study lessons. Each Lesson begins with a day 1 introduction to the grammar skill being taught throughout the lesson.
I decided that I would not use up notebook launch time to teach students about subject and predicate or complete sentences if I saw that they were writing complete sentences. I knew from prior teaching of the Journeys grammar lessons that 2nd graders were not developmentally ready for explicit teaching out of context of these two concepts. I did not feel that these two grammar concepts were necessary over the launching of the notebooks. If after they started writing I noticed that there was an issue with subject and predicate I would go back to it. However, once I began teaching the grammar lessons on statements, questions, and nouns I would make sure to interchange the words of subject and predicate into my teaching. I also decided that my lessons would have less practice pages and more notebook work. I decided to use the projectables to teach with during the teach part of the lesson.
This is the lesson that Journeys uses to begin teaching about statements and questions.
This is the lesson I designed to teach the same concept using the writer's notebook as part of the lesson.
This is the lesson Journeys uses to begin the teaching of nouns.
This is the lesson I designed to teach the same concept using the writer's notebook as part of the lesson.
This is the lesson Journeys uses to teach singular and plural nouns.
This is the lesson I designed to teach the same concept using the writer's notebook as part of the lesson.
Journeys feels that both writing and grammar need to be taught every day. Therefore on days 1-3 the grammar lessons focus on the specific grammar for the lesson and on day 4 the grammar lesson focuses on a review skill and finally on day 5 the grammar lesson focuses on the application of the grammar in a writing piece in their textbook.
Day 2 of lesson 1 uses this lesson to teach subjects and predicates.
Day 3 of lesson 3 uses this lesson to teach statements and questions.
This is the spiral review of adjectives on day 4 to reinforce this concept which was taught in the Journeys program in 1st grade. This lesson is taught in lesson 4.
This is the review of statements and questions that is on day 5, which journeys feels reinforces the grammar in context because it is being used in the text book in writing.
I used this time to launch the notebook with the lessons in the beginning of the page.
Once grammar is taught in the Journeys program it is followed up by a workbook
page in the practice book.
These are a few examples of the practice book pages used to reinforce the concept of subject and predicate in the journeys practice book that is taught in lesson 1.
These are a few pages that are used to reinforce the concept of complete sentences in lesson 2 in Journeys.
These are a few of the practice pages used to reinforce the lesson of teaching statement and question in the Journeys practice book.
These are pages used to reinforce the lesson of teaching "What is a noun?" in the Journeys practice book.
These are pages used to reinforce the lesson of teaching Singular and Plural Nouns in the Journeys practice book.
In Grammar study, connections to the context of authentic writing help students better write and edit their own work." (Hillocks, 1986; Weaver, 1997) "Students who are taught grammar when working on a specific piece of writing show a greater application than do those students taught grammar as a separate activity." (Calkins, 1994; Spandel, 2000) I will integrate the grammar study within the Writer's Notebooks rather than in the practice books.
These are example pages of when my two students went back and highlighted during the lesson instead of using the practice book pages.
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During the lessons where I taught nouns I used their notebooks to help me create a chart list of nouns. I did the same type of teaching when I taught statements and questions. They brought their notebooks to the meeting area and gave me sentences from their notebooks after I had explicitly taught each concept.
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| This was the chart used for singular nouns and then used again to teach plural nouns where the singular nouns have an s added to make it plural. |
Reflections:
I feel that the lessons went well, until I graded the journeys assessment and my students did
not do well on the singular/plural part of one of the "many" assessments. So I went back and re-taught this
concept and I did do the workbook page only to reinforce the skill another way. 
I decided that maybe they needed to do more workbook pages so instead of NOT doing them at all I decided to do them as morning work and/or homework, just to reinforce the grammar skill. When I had conferences with my two students I checked in on them for the grammar concepts but I didn’t have time to check in with all the students. Therefore, I didn’t realize that the rest of the class (majority) did not understand this concept. They did not seem to understand plural nouns either for some reason. For this concept I reviewed the lesson that I had did and added to it instead of making a new lesson and I feel that this lesson did the job! Once I began allowing the students to write in their notebooks, writing workshop was so quiet!
Most of them really enjoyed being able to write about anything they wanted to. I also had to cut down on some of the journeys grammar lessons because they have five lessons, each lesson is 5/6 days and about 4 of the days had a lesson for the grammar concept within the lesson. (Whew!) I did not have that much time. I designed only 1 lesson for each grammar concept so that would free up more time for notebook lessons and independent writing in their notebooks. I still had to fit in personal narrative lessons within the unit. I think that maybe cutting out some of the lessons is what led to the students not grasping some of the grammar concepts. Maybe they needed more explicit instructions on the grammar. For unit 2 I will design more grammar lessons because I will have more time and because I feel it will help the students understand the grammar concepts. The notebooks were actually going along very nicely. Many students were bringing them home. One student continually kept forgetting her notebook at home. Whenever anyone forgot the notebook I acted like it was the worst thing ever! For this student I finally had her call home during writing and tell the person in charge of her that she needed to bring her notebook to school tomorrow. It came in the next day.
I decided that maybe they needed to do more workbook pages so instead of NOT doing them at all I decided to do them as morning work and/or homework, just to reinforce the grammar skill. When I had conferences with my two students I checked in on them for the grammar concepts but I didn’t have time to check in with all the students. Therefore, I didn’t realize that the rest of the class (majority) did not understand this concept. They did not seem to understand plural nouns either for some reason. For this concept I reviewed the lesson that I had did and added to it instead of making a new lesson and I feel that this lesson did the job! Once I began allowing the students to write in their notebooks, writing workshop was so quiet!
Most of them really enjoyed being able to write about anything they wanted to. I also had to cut down on some of the journeys grammar lessons because they have five lessons, each lesson is 5/6 days and about 4 of the days had a lesson for the grammar concept within the lesson. (Whew!) I did not have that much time. I designed only 1 lesson for each grammar concept so that would free up more time for notebook lessons and independent writing in their notebooks. I still had to fit in personal narrative lessons within the unit. I think that maybe cutting out some of the lessons is what led to the students not grasping some of the grammar concepts. Maybe they needed more explicit instructions on the grammar. For unit 2 I will design more grammar lessons because I will have more time and because I feel it will help the students understand the grammar concepts. The notebooks were actually going along very nicely. Many students were bringing them home. One student continually kept forgetting her notebook at home. Whenever anyone forgot the notebook I acted like it was the worst thing ever! For this student I finally had her call home during writing and tell the person in charge of her that she needed to bring her notebook to school tomorrow. It came in the next day.
Action:
My next plan of action is to begin to use the notebooks to teach writing personal narratives. I want them to write about different topics and I want them to understand that a personal narrative is writing about themselves. It can’t actually be a noticing, a story about their sister or a friend’s birthday party. I want them to have the min-lesson and then try it, but also go about writing about anything else they might want to write about too. I will also have to fit some grammar lessons in that are part of unit 1 and part of unit 2 since I did not want to run out of time to teach the grammar concepts and skills. I also wanted to utilize more of the independent writing time for conferencing to check in better with the class.
Analysis and Reflection:
Analysis and Reflection:
I am enjoying using the writing workshop model and the notebooks, as are my students. I feel that this model is student centered. They are more in charge of their independent writing time and their notebooks. I decided that I would only look in the notebooks to make sure appropriate writing was taking place, but not to make anyone feel bad as a writer. I feel that the timing is a bit off due to Journeys not having anytime in it for launching a writing workshop or notebook writing. As I reflect on this I think that next year I might start off a bit differently than this year. I might begin teaching grammar during the launching and refer to writing from photo copied pages of notebook entries from this year, rather than do worksheets. However, I am not exactly sure what I am going to do yet. I am not even sure if I will have to teach Journeys next year. Everything is so “up” in the air. No matter what I will definitely teach writing using my launching and notebook lessons in the beginning of the year. I feel that my students are more invested in their writing than in previous years. It reminds me of writing before the journeys program!
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