The "other" sections of the Writer's Notebook

First- I caved and bought labels for ALL of my students to put in their notebooks. Not only because I'm controlling, but because it's helpful for them to be organized. In fact, they recognized that this will help them become more organized, and make it easier to find sections in their notebooks.

Am I the only one who gets super excited when I see organized tabs? Oh, and notice their "Master AAAWWUBBIS Hunter" stickers? Went over really well, and every student received one when they showed me their completed, and correct, Express Lane Edit for AAAWWUBBIS. It cost $20 for the labels, but I can get four different sets of labels done for my classes. Coming up this week is "Ultimate FANBOYS" :)

Ahhh...organization 

So I have two other sections in my Writer's Notebook, "Author's Word and Phrase Palette", and "Gems". We utilized these sections last week in my Language Arts 1 (Reading) class, by having them out while they silent read!

We started off by labeling the sections in their Table of Contents, and I gave them silly names so that they would be memorable.

I told students that they absolutely did not have to write things down as they read, but if they saw a cool word or phrase, they should write it down so they can remember it later! 

I did the same as I silent read to model.

Here's our section for "Quotes"

The gems section is not only great for remembering quotes, but giving them extra practice with citations. They are already pointing out that I'm missing a citation if I write a quote on the board and don't put the author and page number.

This is this weeks board. I am moving to a two-week process, where we work on WWTW on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Invitations on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I know that eventually this process will go faster, and we won't need an entire class period. For now I am thankful that I have time in the curriculum to go over it in depth. 

I also made a binder to hold all my anchor charts as the year goes on, and students can refer back to it as well.

I've done "anchor charts" for our Invitation to Write days...

and our Express Lane Edits

I'm trying to focus on visual cues with students this year. On a typical day, I have agendas posted/written on the backboard, and projected in the front as well. I'm really trying to have them focus on their surroundings, and taking the initiative to look around the room to answer their questions of, "What are we doing today?" and "Is there going to be homework?"

I apologize for my lack of posts last week. Of course, I set a schedule for myself and then completely break it. It's been non-stop working and grading when I get home every night already, and I'm worried I'm going to burn out very rapidly this year. Going from teaching 6 classes to 7 with four different preps and one plan period has been a bigger hurdle than I think any of us anticipated.  However, I will continue to be committed to giving 100%+ to my students, despite my own stresses.