Hi there everyone! Hope a wonderful year of teaching for you all. I have thoroughly enjoyed my first term in schools. Working with amazing teachers and kids has been so encouraging and led me to detailing more of what I do to assist schools.
I have been a bit slow in adding to my Blog but back on track now.
Below is an outline of the Writers Notebook Routine. I have written this because at times kids find it hard to go from their seed to developing their thinking further so it leads to a real purpose for writing. I always tell teachers to shift into second gear and slow down the modeling, so students can really begin to understand the role of the Notebook – to build their schema, think more deeply and create a real purpose and confidence when they put pen to paper. Too often we see a disconnect between the thinking and shaping into a purpose – it is very easy to write Narrative without really considering possibilities!
Don’t forget how important it is to encourage oral language! Talking to others to others and sharing our thinking helps students to know what they know and is so powerful in assisting their literacy development.
Remember too, that through Inquiry learning and Language Experience you are building their schema as students investigate, share experiences and learning, which makes it easier to write. Inquiry and Language experience approach to teaching and learning needs to harnessed in reading and writing workshops – in fact, if you go into a classroom it would be difficult to identify what workshop you are in!
The Writers Notebook is just a routine that allows students to be independent so we can make the most of our teaching time. There will be times when you pause the routine due to writing, as part of an Inquiry, Author Study or Reading theme, a whole class Language Experience and even Maths! Or it may be, you just want the whole class in Reading and Writing to look at poetry! The good news is when a student finishes early, they are not asking what to do next, as they simply move on with independent writing routine developed through the Writers Notebook.
Oscar in Year 3 is really starting to understand about purpose in writing. Year 3 Classroom – Tessa Carlton Gardens
The most important thing is that write! We need to model and think aloud if we are to really understand what we are asking our students to do.
Remember – if we want quality writing then we need quality thinking!!!
Happy Writing everyone