Struggling Writers: The Writer's Notebook

Make sure to check out the beginning of these posts about struggling writers right HERE!


Writers’ notebooks are a great way to really help get struggling writers engaged every day. It is not always possible to have a writing workshop occurring every day, but it is still important to promote a safe and secure atmosphere in the classroom that encourages writing. Writers notebooks are one of those ways that can help encourage writing. Linda Rief* notes the importance of writers’ notebooks (similar blogs/articles can be found here) saying that “when a student truly keeps the notebook for herself, all that’s important to her creeps in. The notebook becomes more than an academic journal” (40). Writers’ notebooks have the ability to become special to the students separate from a diary, but also separate from school notebook. It encourages honest feelings and personal expression, which helps students to find their own voices.

RalphFletcher states: “I always tell kids that the most important book I’ve written is one that will never be published: my writer’s notebook.” Writers’ notebooks encourage students to grow as writers. Writing in a classroom can seem to students the farthest from normal or comfortable, but using writers’ notebooks is a way that allows writing to feel more natural, which then helps inspire further writing. The more students are willing to write the better they will get. Writers’ notebooks can contain a variety of writing, and as teachers we should not discourage writing that breaks from what we expect. Fletcher continues in his NTCE Article that even drawings and sketches are encouraged. Writers’ notebooks are meant to help get students writing as often as the can, using their own honest voice. Whether that is done with prompts placed on a projector every day before class starts, or if there is some quiet time at the end of class to write about whatever the student wants to write about. Writers’ notebooks give students a place to explore and experiment without being afraid of failure. This is why Writers’ notebooks are so useful for struggling writers, because it is just giving them a place to write, and once they are in an atmosphere of safety they will write.

Writers’ notebooks are a way to let students freely write as the wish. As teachers we can actually help our students to think critically in their writers’ notebooks by the kinds of prompts that we give. Classroomtalk.com lists ten different ways that we can help writers’ notebooks to inspire further connections to what we are reading in class and encourage critically thinking. The ideas are simple, and might even help make writing in writers’ notebooks more exciting because it creates some diversity with the prompts that we give, and the type of writing students do. A word of warning to the wise: Keep prompts at the beginning of class separate from activities we give in connection to lessons. Students need that time to think freely and openly with no concern. It effects the ability of the student to write if we as teachers create that kind of pressure on our students.  

Tara Smith discusses Writers’ notebooks her blog (which post can be viewed here), and she talks about creating a writer’s notebook for yourself, in which you then write with your students. In another post, I talk about how the creation of writing community really fosters an atmosphere that welcomes writing. Writing with your students makes a huge difference in the classroom. By specifically using a writer’s notebook to participate in the same kind of writing as your students, you can offer yourself as a mentor and give guidance.

Another way that a writers’ notebook can be used is as a dialogue journals. Dialogue journals are another way in which the students and teacher can have one-on-one conversation. It is a conversation that the student and teacher keep up with by writing in the journal. Jennifer Gonzalez recommends that the teacher start off the conversation first as it is less intimidating for students to respond than it is for them to being While it may take more effort for the teacher, it allows for connection through writing. Returning to Belinda McGuire (found in this post as well as this one), she emphasizes how using dialogue journals really helps in building trust because as you keep up this written dialogue throughout the year, a connect with the student is formed which really can enhance the relationship quickly. It is another way to help students get engaged in writing, and every student has strategies that really help them to start writing.

In a blog post from the  twowritingteachers.org, they gives five ways for teachers to help use writers’ notebooks to create a workshop type atmosphere. On the posted hyperlinked above she has images and specific examples that could really be beneficial for teachers to see other ways to use writers’ notebooks in the classroom. I find it very easy to use writers’ notebooks in the same ways every day. We get into routine and it can become quite comfortable, but looking for ways to switch up how students use these notebooks in the classroom keeps thinking fresh and it is always healthy to switch things up every so often. 



* If you're interested in hearing more about what Linda Rief has to say, click here

Struggling Writers: Authenticity

     Teachers writing alongside their students helps to make the writing feel authentic. As there is more to the writing then merely a grade. Creating a writers community is vital to helping create a feeling of authenticity. This image put together by Rebeca (which Rusul Alrubail uses in this blog post) gives some basic, yet helpful key ideas to remember when discussing and trying to bring authenticity into the classroom and to the into writing.

            

     Allowing students to choose their own topics can be challenging, it requires that we, as the teacher, give up some control, but in doing so we are putting faith in our students as real writers, and often given the choice to engage in something they want, they put much more effort into the task. Brian Sztabnik discusses this very idea, explaining that authentic writing only comes when students are truly engaged and write in a voice that is totally their own. Sztabnik also gives a variety of authentic writing assignments that were submitted by teachers around the country. Patrica Slagle makes it clear that role-playing is not an authentic topic, “A role-playing prompt may have valuable writing-to-learn potential, allowing a teacher to see how well a student understands a concept, but it allows little room for developing personal voice.” It is vital that we help encourage students’ own voices, doing so helps create the confidence in their belief that they are a writer.

            As a student takes on a topic that interests them, a natural audience tends to emerge. When a student focuses on writing to a real audience beyond the classroom, they are much more aware of their own voice as a writer. They are writing with a purpose and that requires them to focus more on how effective their writing actually is. This then encourages the desire that student writers have to share their writing and receive guidance from their peers. It is important to acknowledge that writing with an authentic purpose and to an authentic audience every day, or for every assignment may not be possible. Slagle makes this point clear, “I do not intend to make authentic classroom writing easy or even always possible…it is not possible to write to a real audience everyday…but authenticity stays in the forefront…because it remains an important goal.” It is important to take Slagle’s advice into our own classrooms. Authenticity is challenging, but it is extremely important and should always be on our minds as we create writing assignments. Writing with an authentic purpose to an authentic audience encourages authentic writing, and can encourage struggling writers to write because they have a real purpose behind their writing.

Struggling Writers: Writers Workshop

      It is only natural, that as writing community is created in a classroom, a workshop type atmosphere also appears. There is a type of freedom that students get when we allow them to engage in a writers workshop, and to use a term coined by Chris Street, the “sage on a stage” (637) is removed. In doing so, the feeling of a writing community is stronger and students feel a closeness with their teacher that they could not feel before. Part of a writers workshop is to give the students more power over their learning. When it is put into their own hands, they feel more responsible. High school teacher Shelby Scofield even said that allowing her students to choose what skills they worked on helped her to “narrow down the specific skills that my students are struggling with.” She also gives different suggestions as to how a writers workshop could be set up.  The image here represents one way in which she set up the stations in her classroom, in order to allow her students more movement and freedom to move about to the stations that found most useful to them. Working together like this within writing workshops helps to create a sense of mutual progress that can’t be faked, as everyone works together to improve themselves.

            A major part of writing workshops that help create this feeling of community is having the teacher write alongside the students. Penny Kittle acknowledges the scariness of this thought in her article and podcast (which I highly recommend listening to her podcast, she is wonderful to listen to) about writing workshops: “I didn’t want to jump into that pool of uncertainty and try it myself. Let’s face it, writing teachers are quite comfortable telling, but showing involves something else entirely” (9). While there may be a desire to avoid writing with students, this is actually extremely beneficial. It is not fair to expect something of our students that we could not expect of ourselves, and as we write, they notice. Kittle continues on, “I know understood the terror and the power of risking the truth in your writing” (10), as teachers we more fully understand the struggles of our students as we write alongside them. It has an effect on the students, that helps further this feeling of trust that is necessary to have a well working workshop.

Writing with the students also helps them to see that nobody’s writing is perfect on the first try. We can help show them the importance of drafting and trying out new things. Breaking away from old habits and experimenting. As the teacher, we have the power to model for our students and they are watching when we really do write. Ruth Ayres talks (check out her blog here) about how she models for her students, “I talk through the choices I’m making, narrating the thoughts in my head as I draft. Other times I simply write and ask them what they notice” (1). Speaking out loud allows the students to see exactly why she doing what she is doing, they can see a clear point A to point B. By having them discuss what she is doing, she is allowing them to ponder why she would do certain things and consider what they would be doing. Both concepts are beneficial and can help students. Teachers need to take the confidence to actually write, because it will make a huge difference in helping their students improve writing.

Make sure to check out the beginning of this set of posts about struggling writers right HERE

Struggling Writers: The Writing Community

     The writing community with a classroom is a huge component in helping struggling writers become the writers they were meant to be. It is vital to help students feel a part of the writer community. As a student in middle school and high school I never felt comfortable with my writing or with my classes, I never wanted to share anything in class. It was overwhelming and I doubted my abilities against my classmates. I did not feel like my writing was important or needed. While seeking to create a strong sense of a writing community may not solve all struggles, helping students to feel a part of something important and greater than themselves boosts their confidence in their own writing. Feeling confident with your writing is a major foundational block to then be able to really embrace further learning to writer.

      Creating a write's community requires the creation of a classroom that feels safe and like a place where students’ know there is trust. No matter where a student falls on the scale of writing, if he or she is not comfortable and does not feel safe, then they are not going to be able—or willing—to write. Belinda McGuire continues in her essay (which is mentioned in this earlier blogpost) to discuss this idea as well: “we cannot achieve higher levels of performance and learning if our basic needs for security and trust have not been met” (17). Writing is an extremely personal affair—good writing requires vulnerability—and writing as well as sharing that writing requires that there be a feeling of safety for the students. As Stacey Shubitz has described it, part of creating a writing community is creating rules and expectations. In doing this we can help create an atmosphere of safety which encourages sharing or writing.

      After this feeling of security is created, it is natural for students to begin to feel a part of that community of writers which encourages further writing because there is a greater purpose behind it. In an article by Chris Street, he discusses his own class and experience with struggling readers, and touches on this very subject: “If students see themselves as contributing members of a writing community, then the motivation to sustain and enhance that community may well cause students to value and contribute to their newfound identity” (640). Every student as an identity as a writer, every person has an identity as a writer, and through the writing community, teachers can help draw out that personality from within their students. Another way that teachers can help students feel a part of a writing community is by addressing the students as writers. As Stacey Shubitz explains about her own classroom, “I called my students writers…and you know what, the kids began to think of themselves and call themselves writers too.” Students need that kind of positive attitude; it helps promote that feeling of safety that is needed to truly write. Calling them writers students writers helps build this relationship with the writing community, and then we can help to increase a student’s confidence to write because he or she feels that their writing is important and that what they have to say is of value.

STRUGGLING WRITERS: WHO ARE THEY AND HOW CAN WE HELP?

      The blank stare of those steel blue eyes pierce deeply. He is not amused by the writing assignment, and definitely has no intentions of completing it. His right hand holds the pencil up to his notebook, he looks down and it begins to move, but it is clear he is not writing—drawing maybe—but definitely not writing. I tried to be supportive, giving guidance, making a basic outline and trying to fill it with things that might be interesting to him. Nothing. Not a nod, nor a flicker of interest in his eyes. He turned his body away and put his head down ​on the table.

      As a teacher, one of my biggest concerns is helping the struggling students. Everyone experiences those feelings of struggling as a writer, of inadequacy or doubt of our abilities. Yet, many of us overcome them with practice and effort; we know the strategies that work to help us out of those ruts. However, there are some who need more help than others, and those are the ones who need the help of their teachers or individuals beyond themselves. But how can we help them? Are there any writing projects that might interest them more, therefore helping them to become more engaged in writing?
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      As I began further inquiry into these questions, I discovered a few interesting details that are important to acknowledge before we can actually help those whom we may call struggling writers. After coming to understand who struggling writers actually are, we can then delve into the strategies and different ideas in which we, as educators, can actually help them—even while in a classroom of 30 students or more. 

​​Who Are They?

​      A major key in being able to help struggling writers is first understanding who they are. The problem with asking a question like “how can we help struggling writers?” is that it suggests there is a one-size-fits-all solution. However, this is entirely false. Never will there ever be a one-size-fits-all solution. No student in any classroom is exactly the same, and it would be silly of any educators to think that only one solution is all it takes to solve all their problems with struggling writers, or any kind of struggling student for that matter. In an article by David Cutler, he gives four different types of students that teachers should be aware of: 

1. the quiet student
2. the disengaged student
3. the struggling student
4. the troublemaking student

By doing this, he is showing the different kinds of students that he (and mostly likely many other teachers) deals with. Showing the different kinds of students that there are in a classroom and giving each type of student a name Cutler is helps teachers like us to see the different kinds of help each student needs. Each student does have different needs. Of course there are basic things we can do that may allow us to help all students on a general level—like teaching different strategies. However, it is important to remember and acknowledge that each struggling writer is and individual, and is having a unique struggle with his or her writing and different strategies will help some more than others. 

            Just as there is no student who is exactly the same, it is important to be aware of the different signs or types of struggling writers that can be found in a classroom. Belinda McGuire, discusses in an article about her class or struggle writers what it means to be a struggling writer. The term “struggling writer” is a very broad term and is rather all encompassing. To say a student is struggling with his or her writing could suggest a variety of different issues. By address this issue McGuire is not only narrowing down what it means, but is also categorizing it (15). When talking about struggling readers, it is important to narrow down what we mean, there is no way to help a student unless we can pin-point where they are actually struggling.  This idea is further emphasized in the book When Kids Can’t Read by Kylene Beers. Beers spends a large chunk in one of her chapters discussing how to identity struggling readers. While her book focuses on struggling readers, the principles she discusses in that chapter can easily be applied to struggling writers as well. It is vital that, as the teacher, we do not stereotype struggling writers. Beers discusses how important it is to avoid only acknowledging the stereotypical struggling readers, and this is the same for struggling writers. Not all struggling writers will look like the stereotypical struggling writers. If we are not doing our best to pay attention, then we will not be able to help the students who really need help. It is part of the teacher’s job to be as aware as possible of all your students and their needs. Do not assume and then only focus on the students who come off as the ones who obviously need help—there are so many more that need guidance. In a study done by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2003, it showed that only one out of every five high school seniors had the necessary writing knowledge and skills which were required (or expected) for their grade level. This statistic is changed one student at a time, and recognizing who those struggling writers are in the classroom is one of the beginning steps to helping students be more equipped in their writing. It is only after understanding who struggling writers are, and being aware of them in the classroom that we, as teachers, can finally begin to help.

            Now that we understand who the struggling writers are, let me show you four ways to help them. While there are a variety of different ways in which we can help struggling writers within our classrooms, this list is not a comprehensive list (which would be impossible to create), but it does engage with quite a few difference thoughts and strategies which we can apply to our classrooms. Even with these difference suggestions, we should not expect to see results immediately. 

           A few different blog posts will be dedicated to the variety of ways we can help struggling readers in our classroom. While each focuses on a different aspect, all of these suggestions do require that the students feel comfortable and safe in the classroom. From experience it appears that safety is needed in order to write freely, and so I would recommend reading my blog post about writer's community before diving into any of the other posts. Here they are for easy access: 

• The Writing Community
• Writers Workshop
• Authenticity 
• The Writer's Notebook

Academic Sources (not other blogs/websites):

McGuire, Belinda "Where Does the Teacher Intervene with Underachieving Writers?" The English Journal 79.2 (1990): 14-21. Web. 10 Oct. 2016.