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At NCTE 2018, I was excited to attend a session, Why Notebooks?, that some of my favorite people were leading: Jen Cherry, Amy Ludwig VanDerwater, Michelle Haseltine, and Linda Urban. I’ve been a notebooker for some time now, and I always have my students decorate a marbleized journal at the beginning of the year, so I was drawn to finding more ways to use notebooks in my classroom.
As someone who loves little notebooks, I was delighted that there were handmade notebooks for us to keep (folded unlined paper with a colored cardstock cover). They passed around puffy stickers for us to choose from. I felt the thrill of creating something new.
Jen Cherry gave us reasons behind using notebooks with your students:
- Personalizes learning by providing choice.
- Encourages mindfulness.
- Builds stamina.
- Encourages risk.
- Students live like writers.
Michelle Haseltine prompted us to write an invitation to our notebooks. On the first clean white page of the little green notebook, I wrote this poem.
I made a commitment to myself to be more intentional about notebook writing with my students. On our first day back after Thanksgiving break, I asked my students to get out their notebooks. In order to provide a structure that honors choice, I thought back to a workshop I attended with our Louisiana Poet Laureate Jack Bedell who told us about William Staffords’ daily writing discipline.
- date
- description of something that happened recently
- aphorism (cliche’)
- meditation (a poem-like thing)
After a few days of using this structure, I was hooked. It was working for me, so why not share it with my students? This is what I wrote on the board:
- Date
- Something that happened…
- Quote of the day
- Poem-ish writing
I set the timer for ten minutes and we wrote. Some shared. And some found their next blog post. “I’m going to use this for my Slice of Life.” We were doing the work of real writers.
We’ve been using the 365 Days of Wonder for quotes of the day, but I wasn’t doing anything more with it than having a student choose one and write it on a frame of glass. They were enjoying the process of choosing and would often naturally start a conversation around the chosen quote. Adding it to our daily notebook page gives more attention to the quote as well as possibly inspiring more writing.
This was our quote yesterday: “Happiness is a perfume you can not pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.” My poem-like meditation:
Happiness is the scent of flowers
in a bouquet
you give
just because
you’re happy.
Then the drops of perfume
fill your senses
and transfer
to whomever you hug.
Spread some happiness today!
As we get more and more adept at writing in our notebooks every day, my students and I will reap the benefits of sharing in a writing community. Why Notebooks? So many reasons. Pull them out of the desks, booksacks, or cubbies and just do it! You’ll be glad you did.
Reflections on the Teche 
I enjoyed that session too (though I arrived late and missed the notebooks! But of course I had my own handy in my bag, ready to write). I didn’t have students get writers notebooks in my comp class this semester, and it’s felt like a mistake all semester. Won’t do that again. Notebooks are too important to me. I really like the structure you’ve used to invite your students (and yourself!) to write, and I’m going to borrow it for myself. My own notebook has been languishing this semester too, and I think this invitation will be helpful to get me writing as well.
Can you email me your address? I have a notebook I want to send to you.
I think I need to find a way to talk to you and Elisabeth about this – an elementary teacher and a college teacher both using notebooks. I’ve been transforming my teaching practice to really implicate my students in directing their own learning & regularly practicing skills, but so far I’m much more successful at doing this with reading than with writing. I wonder if notebooks are an answer? Hmm… Food for thought. Thanks for sharing!
Amanda, I’d love to talk to you more about notebooks. I’ve used them with all ages.
Let’s find a time. I need to rethink my writing instruction & this feels like a step in the right direction.
There you go again….igniting an interest in trying something new with my writing! After your session where you shared William Stafford’s daily writing practice, I have reflected on how trying that myself would reignite my own writing practice.
I’m not producing daily brilliance but I feel it’s the practice of daily writing that is good. And I love sharing these moments with kids.
An invitation that supported me tonight! I have many notebooks started at one time or another…This writing inspired me to choose one and work to fill it with William Stafford’s plan. I started collecting quotes when I was 14. I gathered all my little slips of paper and my mother typed them for me. Those are sacred pages that helped me develop an identity. I should write about THAT!
This post inspired me to use my morning time, the best minutes of the day, to get something on the page. Thank you!
This seems like a great practice. I’m wondering if I can incorporate it somehow in the weekly (for starters) home writing I will ask my students to do after the winter break.
[…] year at NCTE 2018, I attended a notebooking workshop (wrote about it here) with Michelle and others. I came home inspired to make a commitment to notebooking in my […]