Seventh Graders!!! You’re Invited…

to join the Writer’s Notebook Network!

Begin keeping your own writer’s notebook, full of your own ideas and thoughts about the things going on in your life.  Perfect for use during IC classes to reflect about what you’ve read, or to plan for that Quarter Project you have coming up.  Writer’s notebooks are a great way to create a memory book for yourself, something you can look back upon when you are older and remember life as it is now.  Does it help us get ready for the writing test?  Well, yes, but even practicing for that can be fun!

How to begin:

1.              Decorate your notebook.  Make it your own using pictures, markers, quotations, whatever you have to make a unique cover.

2.              On the first page, create a title page, explaining what you expect you’ll use this notebook for, and the dates between which you use it. (Just a starting date for now).

3.              Write, write, write to your heart’s content.  Start with this – Write about something you can not live without.  Explain what it is and why it is so important.  You might even try beginning like this character did:

“Dear Mr. Henshaw,

  I got your postcard with the picture of the bears.  Maybe I’ll do what you said and pretend my diary is a letter to somebody.  I suppose I could pretend to write to Dad, but I used to write to him and he never answered.  Maybe I’ll pretend I am writing to you because when I answered all your questions, I got in the habit of beginning, “Dear Mr. Henshaw.”  Don’t worry.  I won’t send it to you.”

(Dear Mr. Henshaw, Beverly Cleary)