Read: About Your Writer's Notebook
| Site: | Cowichan Valley School District - Moodle |
| Course: | ELA8, CSS, Sferrazza |
| Book: | Read: About Your Writer's Notebook |
| Printed by: | Guest user |
| Date: | Thursday, 16 May 2024, 7:46 PM |
Description
Information on completing a writer's notebook
The Writer's Workshop
In each unit, you will notice there is an assignment called The Writer's Workshop.
The writer's workshop consists of 2 parts.
1. The Writer's Notebook. Please read the following pages for an explanation.
2. Planning, drafting, and revising a major writing piece. These assignments will be submitted on their own on the provided templates and are NOT a part of the Writer's Notebook.
| Unit | Major Writing Piece |
| 1 | Personal Narrative Essay |
| 2 | Persuasive Writing: Speech |
| 3 | Expository writing: Blog |
| 4 | The Descriptive Essay |
| 5 | The Literary Essay |
Getting Started
Throughout this course you will be keeping a writer's notebook that will get you to act like a "real" writer and help you to create pieces of writing that are meaningful to you. There will be teacher-directed entries and your own entries. You will submit them in the Writer's Notebook dropbox for each unit.
Real writers use a notebook to:
- keep a record of observations and ideas.
- start drafts to use for later writing pieces.
- practice writing techniques.
- reflect on their writing process.
- practice writing fluency.
How Do I Do It?
The Writer's Notebook is a tool meant to be useful and meaningful for you.
1. Your own entries can be:
- point form
- drawings
- diagrams
- pictures
- explanations
- questions
- ideas
- responses to readings
- parts of a draft
- clippings
- poetry
- dreams and aspirations
- anything that you might use someday in a piece of writing
2. Teacher-directed
a. At times you will be given an exercise from class to complete in your writer's notebook.
Evaluation: Writer's Notebook
Here is an overview of the Writer's Notebook submissions for each unit. The teacher-directed activities are found in the Writer's Workshop template. You will submit each unit, so your notebook is a constant work in progress.
| Unit | Teacher-Directed Activities | Student-Directed Activities |
| 1 |
1.1 Elements of a Personal Narrative 1.2 The Climb 1.3 Life Map |
1.4 Why We Write 1.5 365 Prompts 1.6 Original Idea |
| 2 |
2.1 Hang Up and Drive 2.2 What do you want to write about? |
2.3 Original Idea 2.4 Original Idea 2.5 Original Idea |
| 3 | There are no teacher-directed entries for this unit. |
3.1 Original Idea 3.2 Original Idea 3.3 Original Idea |
| 4 |
4.1 Brainstorm 4.2 Mentor Texts |
4.3 Original Idea 4.4 Original Idea 4.5 Original Idea |
| 5 |
Self-Assessment documents on the Core Competencies. See 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3 |
5.1 Communication 5.2 Thinking 5.3 Personal and Social Responsibility |
You will submit your notebook for a mark at the end of each unit. It is easy to get top marks. Just do the following:
- Complete at least three of your own entries by the end of the unit.
- Complete all teacher-directed entries throughout the unit. You can use the template.
- Show evidence of effort and thought. If you submit a picture or article add a brief note of why.
- Keep it organized. For your own entries write the date and a title that works for you.
Evaluation will be based on the Writer's Notebook rubric.
Where Do I Write My Entries?
At the beginning of each writer's workshop there will be a template to download.
You can simply complete the word document, save and submit for each unit.
However, to act like a "real writer" you may want to make your writer's notebook personal and use as a tool that works for you.
Ideally you would have a collection of ideas and tips that you could use all the time. Here are some options:
- Hand write in a notebook or journal or binder. (Although, you will have to deliver it to your teacher in person then or take good pictures and submit.)
- Use a Google document or other online tool (Evernote, Weebly, etc. and share the link with your teacher when submitting it).
- Create a word document and keep adding to it each time and submit your latest version at the end of each unit.
Note: This is a private resource that only your teacher will see.