Literacy

Reader’s Notebook – Staff Documentation

Rationale

The Reader’s Notebook is a place for students to record details about the books they’ve read. It allows students to reflect on what they are reading, to track their reading progress and to set realistic reading goals. It encourages students to think deeply about important issues, themes and ideas. Students can summarise what they have read, make predictions about the future of a text or they can make text to self, text to text and text to world connections. These are all important literacy strategies that support our whole school literacy approach within the strategic plan.

At Norwood Secondary College we are committed to the Reader’s Notebook at Year 7 and Year 8 as we want to expose our students to a variety of texts, develop student vocabulary and allow our students to develop ideas for their own creative writing. We also hope to ignite a passion for reading and learning which will extend into their other subjects. The Reader’s Notebook now means that students will be writing for an extended period of time in most of their English lessons. It will support them in remembering and engaging with what they have read.

Procedures

1.1   Staff are encouraged to participate in reading and writing with their students. It is important to model the right behaviours and to make the learning visible.

1.2   Students must respond to what they have read at least twice a week for 5 minutes each time. However, wide reading is expected at the start of every lesson unless there is a formal assessment under test conditions that is required for the semester report.

1.3   It is the responsibility of students to bring a wide reading novel to each and every lesson. However, the library and English Faculty is looking to have some novels and short stories in the Year 7 & 8 classrooms on shelves or in the filing cabinet.

1.4   A timer may be used to keep students on track with their reading and writing.

1.5   Unless a key passage is being analysed within that particular lesson, students are not to read a text that is being covered in class i.e. A Long Walk to Water – Year 7 English.

1.6   Student notebooks are to be kept in the classroom in the filing cabinet or on a shelf to prevent them from being misplaced or lost. They are not to be taken home by the student. Notebooks can be shared with parents at parent/teacher/ student conferences.

1.7   Staff will be provided with possible prompts or tasks for the Reader’s Notebook. However, prompts can be altered or created based on the content that is being covered in that lesson. Students are advised to keep a record of tasks that they have already completed and they must not complete the same task in each lesson. This will require close monitoring from staff.

1.8   Staff are required to check student notebooks regularly; however, they are not to be formally assessed. Teachers are advised to give a brief comment about what they have read. No changes are to be made to spelling, punctuation or grammar.

1.9   English staff will continue to encourage student reading and writing for extended periods of time throughout their lessons.

The Writer’s Notebook

Key points about the Writer’s Notebook:

A Writer’s Notebook is a blank book where a writer can engage in the fun, often messy job of being a writer – practising, listening, playing with language, gathering images, insights and ideas. A writer’s notebook is a tool students use to record the things they notice, observe and think about. Each recording is called an ‘entry’. The entries can be any variety of ideas. The most common are:

• Memories
• Observations of things happening around them
• Descriptions of people and places
• Opinions
• Wonderings
• Family stories, hobbies and other passions

A Writer’s Notebook houses ideas that writers can return to in order to grow ideas, restructure, rethink, revise, connect ideas and ultimately choose from a variety of entries to publish for an audience. Notebook writing encourages students to take the ‘long view’. What might start as a small, undeveloped idea has the potential to be developed into something fully formed.

All notebook entries are not drafts. This conveys to the students that it is okay to write for no sake other than seeing what they can do with words and taking time to pay attention to their ideas and the world around them.

Students learn to write by writing. They need sustained periods of time each week to write. The notebook gives direction and structure to these sustained periods of writing time.

The Writer’s Notebook supports the reluctant writer – the ones who do not write fluently, or struggle to write (especially during assessments). These writers often have trouble finding something to write about, or struggle to find the words to express their ideas. Frequent, low stakes writing will build their confidence and skills as a writer.

The writer’s notebook is not:

• A reading log
• A new name for a ‘journal’
• A response journal for students and teachers to engage in back-and-forth dialogue
• A booklet to collect teacher-generated worksheets or activities

Assessment

To ensure the notebook is a low stakes comfort zone:

• Do not grade individual entries, or the notebook as a whole
• Don’t write comments on the student’s page (if you want to add comments, consider doing it verbally and letting the student record them, or using post-it notes)
• Don’t edit their work – the notebook is NOT about being grammatically perfect

How to monitor how the students use their notebooks:

• Read recent entries in their notebooks
• Ask students to put post-it notes on the entries they would like you to read – perhaps choose some criteria, e.g. choose an entry you love, an entry where you tried something new, an entry that shows your best idea/symbolism/use of quotes etc.
• Confer with your students and ask them to talk about the entries they have written over the last week

How to use the notebook in the classroom

You should aim to use the notebook 2-3 times a week, for 5-10 minutes each time. This ensures students get into the habit of practising writing, makes them continually generate ideas and builds writing fluency.

When introducing the notebook in your class, you need to consider the following questions:

• Will my students take their notebooks home, or will they stay in the classroom?
• Is the notebook easy for ALL students to manage? (consider students with special needs)
• How will students personalise their notebooks? (students need to take ownership of these books, so consider encouraging them to decorate the covers)
• Will I ask students to date each entry?
• How can I keep it alive all year?
• How will students use the notebook when they are close to ‘high stakes’ writing tasks (SACs)?
• How often will I read through their notebooks?

The difference between high stakes and low stakes writing: