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



Scholarly Sources (besides the blogs/websites)

Rief, Linda. "A Reader's--Writer's Notebook: It's a Good Idea."  Voices From the Middle 10.4 (2003): 40-41. Print.