Writer's Notebook, Place Where Students Can Play with Writing

Students need a safe place to write and play with new techniques of writing and that is where Jeff Anderson came up with the idea for the Writer's notebook. He has the students break the notebook into many sections that will be useful and also a reference for them for their writing

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One section that he talks about that I thought was something that was interesting was a the "Beginning with Writing" section where students are just expected to write without stopping for ten minutes. Its a good way to get students to blurt out whats going on and to react to something they are reading in class. Anderson has them write after he reads paragraphs from books out loud as well which I think is a great idea where he asks them to pick up phrases that stick out. I think that is a great way to get students to notice what they like and things that they might want to use in their writing

.I also really enjoyed Anderson's idea of the Author's word and phrase palette where as students are reading they can write down words and phrases that they really liked and what they might want to use in their writing.He wants them to look for things like action verbs, cool words, or phrases that they like. By writing this in their notebook they can go back to it later to add it into their own writing to enhance their writing.

Another great idea that Anderson talks about in his book is the idea of "the Writer's Eye" where students can write experiences they have had and things they have observed with their own eyes. I think this is a great way to give students ideas of what they can write about. It gives them a place to write down the places, things, people, etc. that they know really well. 

Ralph Fletcher also has a book about the writer's notebook which has ideas that are a little different than Anderson but they have some similar ideas as well. It could be another great source to add even more to the writer's notebook.