Week 2: Launching the Writer's Notebook

How do we launch the Writer's Notebook in our classes? Dorfman and Cappelli have numerous way on how to best help our students create and enjoy their writing. One way the suggest is by read-alouds. I loved the was Dorfman and Cappelli stated this idea about how to get your students connected with read-alouds.

"Books rich in stories about families, children, animals, and special places, to name a few , are the kinds of books we should introduce to our students as read-alouds. In addition to being the kinds of books students can easily relate to, they provide models of the type of writing we expect our students to do"(pg. 22-23)

Throughout this chapter in the text, Dorfman and Cappelli describe the best strategies to use in order to really connect writing with our studnets. I really enjoyed reading about the idea of the writer's notebook becoming their treasure chests. This treasure chest will be something they can always come back to and fill their memories, experiences, observations in, as well as lists, etc. It would be their's for whatever they wanted to keep and hold on to.

One other interesting way Dorfman and Cappelli suggest on how to find creative topics in your writer's notebook is by, an outdoor writer's cafe. This creative, thoughtful way of getting your students to write in their notebooks in easy, yet fun to experience. There are many ways you can look at something outside and create it into something you write about. I really liked their way of explaining that you write down what you see, smell, hear, taste, and feel. They provide so many examples of great, creative poems based on this strategy!

Brown Girl Dreaming is a beautiful, inspiring book. Throughout this book, I learned a lot about her family, the time and scene in section 1 of the book, and what they may have been going through during this time. For example, she is from Ohio, but talks about how the South is at the time and how dangerous it might be because,

"too many people are enslaved, then emancipated but not free, the people who look like me keep fighting and marching and getting killed"

pg.2

I learned that a lot of history is talked about in this section of the book. She includes events such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and the difference between the North and the South at the time. Below I wanted to share one of my favorite poems from the book. I really liked this particular entry because I felt it was so pure, true, and inspiring yet, simple and difficult at the same time!

Brown Girl Dreaming, Pg. 20

Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Pg. 87

One thing I love about AKR is how relatable she is. All of her entries are funny, enjoyable, and sometimes the "oh yea, i've definitely been there before" thought. From a readers perspective, I really enjoy this because I can actually connect with the author, AKR. As a teacher, that is one of our main goals for our students. We want our students to feel like they can connect with us and share whatever they want to share with us. AKR shows a great way of doing this by simply writing what's on her mind at times. I really liked the entry she wrote on page 87 (picutred above). I thought this was very funny and even more relatble than other entries. You always want to make your guests feel at home, but sometimes you're so nervous you forget a key part of making them comftorable!

Resources!

Woodson, Jacqueline. Brown Girl Dreaming. Puffin Books, 2014.
Rosenthal, Amy Krouse. Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal. 2016.
Dorfman, Lynne R, and Rose Cappelli. Mentor Texts Teaching Writing Through Children's Literature, K-6. 2nd ed., Strenhouse Publishers, 2017.