Writer's Notebook - Take 2
I am loving our "old school" Writer's Notebooks! We debated whether or not we should bring them back into the classroom and I think we absolutely made the right choice. Last year, our principal asked, "Why ask students to have a composition book for writing when almost all of them have access to devices that allow them to write digitally?" Last week and today we experienced this "why" in an amazing way!
Revision is the answer to this question - seeing the crossing out of sentences, addition of words and rearranging of ideas. This revision step is essential in the writing process and so often overlooked by many students (and adults) when drafting digitally. Last week teachers and students literally wrote over entire sections of their stories, added in words to make their narrative more descriptive and removed sections of the story because a peer hinted that it was a little confusing. This process of looking more closely at my own writing really reminded me of how hard to write! I made a lot of the same mistakes in my initial drafts that I see students make - really a story that is one long paragraph? I can't believe I forgot all of the rules and wrote like this. But what a powerful lesson this is for the students. I shared with them (embarrassingly) that I am out of practice - I need to write more just like they do so these "rules" of writing become habit.
Today, students and teachers continued this process by typing a draft of the best of their four "Writing Memories" into Google Drive. Both Mrs. Honeycutt and I shared that two of our pieces could NOT be taken to final copy for this assignment because they do not follow the prompt. Did we both attempt to write four narratives? Absolutely! Did we both end up with two narratives and two informative pieces? We sure did! And this is okay! Our Writer's Notebooks are places for us to play with writing and practice writing. Could additional revisions be made as students were working today? Absolutely; is a writer truly ever really finished? I know that I changed words and added in much more description while typing my "final" draft. Will some students choose to come back to this piece and polish it even more later in the year? We will see, but by seeing these constant revisions of writing, by both teachers and classmates, I truly believe WRITERS will be headed to English I next year and that I may finally see myself as a writer!
Revision is the answer to this question - seeing the crossing out of sentences, addition of words and rearranging of ideas. This revision step is essential in the writing process and so often overlooked by many students (and adults) when drafting digitally. Last week teachers and students literally wrote over entire sections of their stories, added in words to make their narrative more descriptive and removed sections of the story because a peer hinted that it was a little confusing. This process of looking more closely at my own writing really reminded me of how hard to write! I made a lot of the same mistakes in my initial drafts that I see students make - really a story that is one long paragraph? I can't believe I forgot all of the rules and wrote like this. But what a powerful lesson this is for the students. I shared with them (embarrassingly) that I am out of practice - I need to write more just like they do so these "rules" of writing become habit.
Today, students and teachers continued this process by typing a draft of the best of their four "Writing Memories" into Google Drive. Both Mrs. Honeycutt and I shared that two of our pieces could NOT be taken to final copy for this assignment because they do not follow the prompt. Did we both attempt to write four narratives? Absolutely! Did we both end up with two narratives and two informative pieces? We sure did! And this is okay! Our Writer's Notebooks are places for us to play with writing and practice writing. Could additional revisions be made as students were working today? Absolutely; is a writer truly ever really finished? I know that I changed words and added in much more description while typing my "final" draft. Will some students choose to come back to this piece and polish it even more later in the year? We will see, but by seeing these constant revisions of writing, by both teachers and classmates, I truly believe WRITERS will be headed to English I next year and that I may finally see myself as a writer!