Wait, What Do We Do With It?

A series of unfortunate events led me to a few class periods of delight. This week, some photos from a few years ago popped up in my FB feed. The photos were from the first week of school during the last year I taught 4th grade. My students were standing all around their desks, and there were papers and stickers, and other craft supplies all around the room. They were decorating their first ever writer's notebooks. It was a warm reminder of my most favorite activity with students during the first week of school each year.

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About three weeks before the end of summer, the English teacher at my school (I say the, because we only have one teacher per core content area.), told me she was taking a job at another school. It wasn't a complete surprise. She had good reason and we had been dialoguing about her future goals, so I knew it was coming eventually. Fortunately, I found a teacher who I think will be a great replacement. But when you work with DOE and DJJ, background screenings take what seems like forever. I was not able to get her approved for hire in time for the first day of the new semester.

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I was able to secure one of our substitutes to cover the English classes until the new teacher came on board. She's worked at our center all summer, is great with the girls, and perfectly capable of teaching content in any subject area. The only problem is she's not a certified teacher, nor did she study education. Her degree is in psychology. That means I had to do the lesson plans.

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We weren't sure if the new teacher would be approved, hired, and trained in time for the second week of school or not, and the first week was only three days, so I decided to use the three days strategically. I was hoping by the first full week, my new English teacher would be ready to go. (It's a moot point now, but she will be training the first full week, and will take her classes on the week following.) How would I use the three days productively, but not trying to inauthentically start the new year in a way that the new teacher would have to undo or redo any processes or procedures?

I decided the first two days, the students would all be given a baseline writing assessment. Sounds kind of like a buzz kill for the "first day," but understand we are a year-round school. Our girls had the previous Friday, and Monday and Tuesday of this week as their break. Coming to school is pretty routine for them. It's not like a traditional school where they didn't know who their teachers would be. They got a new schedule and a mix-up of some of their classmates from the summer semester. But that's about all the change they need. I figured, why ruin the fun, get-to-know-you and let's get to the academic plan for the new teacher? We'd handle the informal writing assessment and then she'd have some fresh and current writing from her students, to get to know where they are and to guide her instruction.

That left Friday for something fun. I knew they'd need something more creative on Friday, just by virtue of it being a Friday, and because they had worked on an assessment for two days. That's when the FB memory came to mind. I had just seen it a day or two prior and it was just the thing I needed- two purposes in one. First, it would provide that fun activity. Second, it would allow me to touch each class with my goal for them all to become a community of writers!


I put together a simple lesson plan, secured enough composition books- one for each girl in our school, and purchased a whole bunch of fun papers and stickers from the craft store. I knew the previous teacher had left behind a whole drawer full of magazines for cut-outs as well. Here was the plan:

Each girl got a book. The teacher (either me or the sub, depending on which period it was) read aloud an excerpt from the Ralph Fletcher book A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You. I love the chapter I chose, and it happens to be the first chapter: What Is a Writer's Notebook Anyway The chapter ends with an important note about making the writer's notebook your own. Fletcher also tells them it's not a diary and it's not a book for assignments from your teachers. It's yours to write whatever you want. "Huh?" they seemed to say with their inquisitive faces.

After the read aloud, I explained they would have about two thirds of the class period to decorate the front covers however they wanted, using the craft supplies provided. I told them I would give them one assignment for the first page, and then after that we would never tell them again what to write in them. Again, "Huh?" but this time they asked out loud. "What are we supposed to write in it?" one girl asked. I told them they could write anything they wanted whenever they wanted. They could jot down favorite quotes or song lyrics, write stories either of things that happened or made up. I told them they could even glue photos and other items in the book if they wanted. They seemed utterly amazed. Clearly they hadn't had an experience like this before. I told them they would be encouraged to take them home and carry them around, and write whenever the mood hit them.

The final task in the lesson was to create a heart map on the first page. You can look up lessons for a heart map. But to summarize briefly, you draw a giant heart and put the most important people and things in your life in the middle, and continue to add other things you love all around it. I told the girls it can be used as inspiration when they want to write or need ideas. It helps to remember the important people and things in your life, and when you open your notebook and have it all in front of you, the ideas and the stories start to flow.

The girls had fun decorating their notebooks. I look forward to seeing them around school. I hope they use and enjoy them and write! Fletcher says a writer's notebook is a good way to live "a writing kind of life."