“Lean into your student’s writing and say WOW. Even if there isn’t a lot of wow there.”
~ Lucy Calkins
Building a community of writers is not an easy task.
I volunteer 4 hours a week teaching 4th graders Writer’s Workshop at Mia and Max’s school. These precious 4 hours keeps me centered on good practices and gives me an opportunity to help students believe in themselves as writers.
The first steps to encourage young writers has been a long tradition embraced in our household; providing resources, modeling, opportunity and ownership of “The Notebook”.
Our family hordes notebooks. Every July we start searching for the best deal on spiral notebooks and every year without fail we find the dream sale: 10 cent spiral notebooks. I have been known to badger general managers to let me have more than the limit of 20 per a customer and resorted to folding my hands and getting on my knees at Staples pleading, “Please let me buy 100 notebooks with one transaction, it is for the children.”
Over the years we have given countless notebooks to students accompanied with the signature blue or black Platt pen made by Pentel that has the word Wow! inscribed next to the brand name. It makes a cool clicking sound when you push the top button and has a built in cushion grip. The children sit up a little taller in their chairs when I hand them the pen and the word Wow! is written on the pen.
What’s not to love?
Some of you may be groaning and saying to yourself no pens, but I insist that students write in pen for 3 reasons.
1. Pencil is hard to read and gets smudgy over time.
2. Pencil lead breaks and the fluency and flow of writing is lost.
3. Pencils have erasers.
Pens and notebooks gives students an opportunity to act like a writer, live the daily life of a writer, and become a writer. A writer’s notebook is a safe place to create memories, save stories, ramble on about reflections, write to prompts. Even more important, a notebook is an ongoing document of a student’s growth and consistency.
Daily writing and maintaining the notebook is like the little engine that could.
It is part of the process to create writing fluency, but the best part is responding to the student’s words. When I work in tandem with the 4th grade teachers, we value the student’s sense of commitment and achievement by providing immediate feedback with a thoughtful response. This opportunity for personal interaction with a teacher gives students concrete reflections to reread, provides positive reinforcement and helps a teacher gain valuable information to plan mini lessons to address student’s needs.
Taking the time to show that you value your student’s writing influences them to take more risks and write more. This small gesture of writing back to the student increases confidence and establishes a rapport that keeps students motivated as they navigate through the writing process.
Yesterday, a student wrote back to me in the notebook, “Mrs. Platt I used to hate writing. Now I can’t stop. Thank you for my notebook.” Sincerely, Thomas.
We all need cheerleaders, especially our children. So lean into your students and write a simple “WoW this is a really great lead sentence. I am hooked!” and help our children make the Wow factor happen in their daily writing with your actions and words.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s always rewarding for me to read about how you write about writing, especially as you teach it to others. For you and your family, writing is not a subject, not a set of rules, not even work, but rather a living, breathing extension of yourselves. It reminds me to let my writing mind relax and play a little more.
Lori,
Thank you for celebrating our love for writing. It is as essential to our family as a drink of water or a breath of air. Our children remind us to play with language more and I am grateful for their glee for life and language.
I’m glad you’re spreading notebooks like seeds! I’m still a notebook and pen addict, thanks to Santa Claus, who hooked me from the start by making sure there was always stationery in my stocking. Thanks to my mum’s encouragement, my dad’s storytelling skills and lots of reading and TV watching, school didn’t squash my love of writing, as it does for so many kids. Our kids, like yours, have grown up in a house where reading and writing are as natural as breathing. Both my kids write well, which warms my heart; teenagers get a bad rep.
The kids at Max and Mia’s school are lucky to have your support in their tender years.
Thanks for writing this. I’m a student teacher about to embark on my solo teaching in a challenging, diverse 5th grade class. I’m going to be focusing my literacy instruction on notebooks and fluency strategies. You put the bug in my ear to ban pencils from our writing. What a brilliant idea!
Could you possibly tell me where that Lucy Caulkins quote came from? I’d like to cite it and use it in a paper.
Janice: I always enjoy your stories. You have a wealth of sweet ones. Thank goodness school did not squash your love for writing and that you are able to pass the passion from your parents to your sweet family.
Elicia:I think the quote came from Quote Garden.
Yes, ban the pencils. They will drive you insane. Pens take away a lot of excuses and time wasters. Make sure to tell your students that when they make a mistake just draw a line through the unwanted words and keep going. No scribble scrabble. (another time waster) Clicking pens are great once you establish the no clicking rule. Click on to start writing and click off when you are done. If you have pens with caps, toss the caps and just give them the pen. We keep the writing pens in a special box that the pen manager passes out to all. It works really well.
Good luck on your first student teaching assignment. It is fun to have a group to mold and influence.