Writer's Notebook Part 3: My Fav 3 Assignments

            It has been a month since my last post.  Well, over a month.  That’s what happens at the end of the semester if you’re an ELA teacher – you lose yourself to final exams, retakes of final exams, and enough data to make you wonder if you teach Language Arts or Math.

            My previous posts have been about the Writer's Notebook in my classroom, and this post will wrap up that series.  The timing of this post is kind of on point – as I reflect on this past year to make new goals for myself, I get to think about which writing assignments worked well and which ones….ugh, which ones were lessons learned.

            I started the notebook in my classes last year, but have fully implemented it this year.  We start with 10-15 minutes of writing in our notebooks each class period.  Some days a topic might just be for the day.  Some topics might last 3 or 4 days.  Some assignments we work only at the beginning of class.  Others might last the whole class period.  It depends on the assignment, but more importantly, how it engages my students.  If it is something the kids really get into, I might let it go on for another day if they are working hard. 

            Besides getting to talk to kids while they are writing, my favorite part of the writing process is Author’s Chair, when the students get the opportunity to share what they have completed.  Sometimes this is meant to showcase their work; sometimes it is meant as an opportunity to present challenges or questions to the class so the author gets feedback.

            Here are my Favorite 3 Writer’s Notebook Activities from this semester:

Memorial Design

            This makes me feel old just thinking about it, but I teach kids who weren’t alive when the events of September 11^th, 2001 took place.  (I think I just felt a hair turn gray thinking about it!)  My kids don’t remember where they were when it happened (in utero is something we don’t like to imagine…or talk about in school), or comprehend just how much the world has changed since then (in utero vs. out of utero), but they have experienced the memorials.  So, on September 11^th, we talk about how we honor those who lost their lives – on this day or any day.  We talk about moments of silence, statues, scholarships, naming public places after people, etc.  Then, we read Billy Collin’s poem, The Names.  After reading it, table groups discuss if a poem or other literary work can be a memorial, and why.   Finally, students are given the opportunity to create a memorial for someone special to them in their Writer’s Notebook.  It can be a poem, drawing, song, etc.  I’ve had kids design parks for grandparents who loved going to the park.  I’ve had kids create football stadiums for parents.  One of my personal favorites is a ginormous Diet Coke statue that dispenses Diet Coke for a grandmother that always had a can of Diet Coke in her hand (I can relate).

            In the design, I ask kids to think about color choices (what do colors symbolize and how can they contribute to honoring someone), and what is the best way to honor that person (what was important to them and what legacy would they want to carry on).  This assignment usually lasts a few days and kids get the opportunity to share their work on the document camera.

            Middle school kids can be very self-centered.  This assignment is one of my favorites because it makes them really think about someone beside himself or herself.  I enjoy listening to the rationale behind their choices.   It also lets me hear about special people for my kiddos, which allows me the opportunity to know more about them before we start more formal writing pieces and they need help brainstorming topics.  With this assignment, I can start to tell what is important to them already.

A House of My Own Vignette

PQP Notes for a rough draft

            Everyone tends to use the “My Name” vignette from The House on Mango Street, and believe me, I did, too.  However, the “The House on Mango Street” vignette digs a little deeper.  We did the whole “My Name” thing and the first drafts were…well, not what I expected.  I started to panic.  I realized that my kids were being very, very literal.  So I told them we would come back to that piece, but we were going to read another piece.  The first drafts of “The House on Mango Street” were nothing short of amazing.  With that piece, students started to see the more creative, reflective type of writing we would be doing, compared to the more technical and formulaic writing they had previously done.  (I’m not trying to knock that type of writing – at all.  In fact, when I have kids who haven’t had to do a lot of writing before, I often start with “formulas” to help them.)  After that first round, we did PQP editing (Praise – Question – Polish), which is now a go-to process for a class in particular.  If you have extremely social kids, this works well.  Kids work in pairs or triads to share writing drafts.  The group then shares praises they have for the piece, question things that don’t make sense, and then give the author a couple of ideas for things that might need to be polished for the next draft.  Because this involves a lot of discussion and movement, the students love it.  Because the discussion is very specific, I love it.  It is really a win-win situation. 

            With my Pre-Advanced Placement class, several students had done this type of writing, while it was completely new to others.  For my kiddos that needed to be challenged, I gave them the challenge to emulate an author they really liked.  I had a student that took this to a whole new level and “shaped” her poem like that of her favorite author’s works, Ellen Hopkins.  Click here to see it.

            If your kids really get into this activity, they can create their own version of The House on Mango Street.  My students created The School on Veterans Parkway, full of their own stories.  It is being self-published in Spring 2016 (in other words, I finished editing it during break earlier this week and am sending it to an online printer to be published).  In the meantime, here is a student's work on his "My House" vignette published on his dad's site.

            When building relationships with my kids, I often wonder how they became the person they are now.  The “My House” dives into this a bit.  Kids have talked about renting apartments with the dream to one day own a home so they get to paint their walls, to the crazy neighbors their family likes to prank, or the loss of a home due to poor choices and how that impacts them.  This particular assignment had me laughing and crying while reading.

The Desk

Desk Writing Collaborative Piece

            We had a day at the end of Quarter 1 that we literally didn’t have anything that had to be done.  We had completed our end of the quarter exam and had made corrections.  We had organized our binders.  Our Writer’s Notebooks were in order.  So, we did a writing assignment that I will now be the first writing assignment I do every year.  My high school English teacher did this with my class back in the day, but I put my own spin on it.

Desk Writing Assignment with "Favorite Line"

            I put a student desk in the middle of the room.  I then told students they had to write about the desk for 15 minutes (pencils couldn’t leave the page).  Also, no talking (which is a big deal – we do a lot of talking while we write).  I bet 10 hands went into the air.  I told them I wasn’t answering questions at that time – write for 15 minutes about the desk and no talking were the rules.  Students walked around the desk; one student even sat at the desk while writing.  After the 15 minutes, we did an author’s chair and students shared their work.  We had pieces that ranged from describing the graffiti on the desk to accusing the chair of being part of the Illuminati to a story set in a nightclub where the desk was a transgender transformer that had been accused of murder.  (Have I mentioned how much I love my students?!?!)  Students that had written more descriptive pieces wanted to redo the assignment to write more creative pieces.  So, we did, but in a different way.  I asked each student to choose one sentence or line from their piece that they really liked.  As each student shared, I wrote their line on the board.  When we finished, we had 25 really good lines, but no real piece.  Students were then asked to take those lines- all 25 of them – and create a new piece.  It could be a poem or a story.  The end result was AMAZING!  I know they are really good kids, but their work on this shocked even me!  As an exit ticket, I asked kids to send me an email about the activity.  Every kid wrote that it was their favorite assignment of the year.  Every. Single. Kid.  It was great!

            This assignment without a doubt is my favorite because we work on the final product together.  I try to instill a sense of community in my classroom.  With this assignment, I finally saw that “spark” in students where I knew our classroom community had come together.

I love getting new ideas - what are some of your favorite notebooking activities?

Love and Sparkle,