Writer's notebooks for writing fluency in 34d-5th grade

One of my favorite tools for teaching writing and building writing fluency is writer’s notebooks!

I use writer’s notebooks in upper elementary to provide students with a handy reference tool, generate lots of ideas for writing, and give them a place to write fluently without stopping.

Writer’s notebooks are a great place to build a daily routine to give your kids daily practice in fluent writing.

They also can serve as a collection of ideas, ready for digging into when kids say, “I don’t know what to write about!”

What’s a writer’s notebook?

Every student in my class has a writer’s notebook that they decorated.

I used this for fluency writing (so essential for kids to learn to write with fluency in upper elementary and to keep their brains moving and forming ideas), recording ideas for writing, try-its (when we learned a new paragraph structure or any sort of skill/craft pertaining to the writing process, we put it in here) and what I called “unpacking.”

Unpacking is where we emptied our brains on paper – whatever was in there, we dumped it out. I usually had them do this for about 6-8 minutes after recess or lunch – a time I knew they’d have a LOT to say.

How to Teach Students to Quickwrite

It is so wonderful to see them write with such ferocity. Once the habit is built, it’s easy and it supports their ability to write longer pieces.

It takes time to start, though, so start with everyone opening to a blank page – I had to teach to open to the NEXT blank page, or draw a line under the last time we wrote.

Then I model thinking aloud as I was writing. Whatever pops into my brain goes right on the paper.

I write complete thoughts as well as any incomplete thoughts that jumped into my brain. If I am stuck and couldn’t think of anything to write, I write the same word or sentence over and over.

The one thing I do NOT do was stop my pencil. “Stop your pencil, stop your brain,” is a phrase I frequently say. We want kids to develop the ability to think and write quickly; not get stuck ever twenty seconds, so that’s what I model.

Then I set a timer for one minute and have kids practice. Some just sit there, so I walk over and said, “Write ‘I don’t know what to write’, over and over.” It was probably more than they’d written in a month, so I was happy with that.

Over time, I increase the timer up to 8 or even 10 minutes.

It doesn’t solve all the writing problems, but I can guarantee it supported my students in writing and thinking more fluently.

BIG NOTE: I wrote WITH the students. We have to practice what we preach and model that writers actually write.

How can you get started? Ensure each student has a writer’s notebook. I prefer a spiral notebook to composition books because they open and lay flat, but whatever you like will work!

Dedicate a small section of time to freewriting, unpacking, or whatever you want to call it. When you model a lesson, have them try it in their notebooks, too!

I send them home the second week of school with a note for families to decorate them with photos or pictures of things that were special to students, but that’s a bonus. You could also give them time to do that at school!

The idea it that, when they’re stuck for ideas about what to write about, they can look back at their notebook and get ideas. That, of course, has to be modeled as well.

Helpful printables for writer’s notebooks

Here is a list of handy printable tools I have students keep in their notebooks.

We do these as lessons towards the beginning of the year and use them as a reference all year long!

Writing Survey
“Myself As a Writer”
“My Writing Goals”
Bunting to personalize for students
Writing Rubric
STAR Revising Strategy
My Personal Spelling List
Synonyms for Word Choice
Words I Love List

You can get these printables and so many more in my Catch the Writing Wave and Wild About Writing resources!

These resources are called “Writer’s Workshop” but they work with different models of writing because I created them to suit my own needs, and I modified my instruction to meet the needs of my students – not to follow anyone else’s structure or models to a T.

Ocean Writer’s Workshop Materials