This document provides guidance for teachers on launching notebook writing with students. It discusses including storytelling to spark interest, considering notebook design features, and strategies for getting students writing such as writing about their name, creating lists of favorite and least favorite topics, or thinking through questions. It emphasizes building writing fluency through daily pages, writing related to literature, observations using senses and figurative language, and continuing other students' writing. The teacher should set clear expectations around regular writing both in and out of class while allowing students freedom in their topics.

1. Chap. 2 “Launching the Notebook”
Grade 4’s – 9 year olds?
Teacher Ms/Mrs Buckner
1. Inside Notebooks
2. Strategies for Beginning Notebook Writing
3. Building Writing Fluency and Sustaining Interest
4. From considerations to expectations

2. 1. Inside Notebooks
• Start with storytelling, but as teacher write
in own notebook until learners ask, then
teacher reads from inside their notebook
and learners also want to share, but
because can’t all talk at once, have to all
write inside their notebooks.
• It is the teacher’s personal choice about
what notebook will look like, but consider:
portability/size, page size, replaceable
once filled, storage in classroom, use front
and back, personalisation, special needs,
e.g. dyslexic used laptop

3. 2. Strategies for Beginning Notebook
Writing
• History of a name : writers are choosy about characters
names, so learners who write about how they got their
name, what they like about it, their nicknames realise
how significant naming is.
• Writing from a list : learners create a best list
(e.g. my mom or Chelsea) and a worst list (e.g. getting
stitches or Chelsea dying) to write from the lists.
• Thinking through questions : caters for wandering minds
“Why do cats meow?” OR “Have you ever wondered if
Adam and Eve had belly buttons?

4. 3. Building Writing Fluency and
Sustaining Interest
• Daily Pages: 1 page minimum
• Writing off Literature: read and then write
• Observations: senses, simile + metaphor
• Writing from a Word: noun e.g. cow *
• Rereading and Highlighting
• Lifting a line: continue writing from highlighted
sentence *
* Jacqui made us do this yesterday when we
wrote about either friendship, politics,
adventure, coffee, hikes and white.

5. 4. From considerations to expectations
Learners need boundaries so teacher must
tell them she expects daily writing and 3
times a week at home, that they must try
the strategies, respect each others
notebooks, practise spelling and grammar
and find their own topics as they discover
how writing can enrich their lives.
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