✏️ How to Write Every Day (Student Writing Notebooks) (1/3)

Daily writing transforms writing notebooks to sketchbooks.

Jan 04, 2025

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Teach Writing Tomorrow addresses major myths and misconceptions about teaching writing. It will move from attitudes to actions and mindset to methods, showing how any teacher, regardless of their own perceived ability or creativity, can teach writing tomorrow.

Abstract: The Daily Writing Notebook

Write Every Day will explain daily writing notebooks as how students write every day. Part 1 will focus on an overview of the basic routines. Part 2 will focus on what to write and how to grade it. Part 3 will focus on scripts and checklists for getting started, along with free writing prompts.

The Blank Page and the Blank Canvas

What if improving student writing doesn't require expensive curriculum? What if improvement doesn't demand studying spreadsheets? What if instead you start with a few basic principles, some playfulness, and five focused minutes per day?

Learning is as much psychology as pedagogy. Actions become attitudes and attitudes become actions. Many students struggle with writing precisely because they do not write. The action of not writing becomes the attitude that writing is hard. Well-intentioned but otherwise ineffective writing methods ensure what students do write is all wrong.

This works elsewhere. Occasional work brings occasional results. The action of not running, for instance, becomes the attitude that running is too hard. The attitude that running is too hard becomes the action of not running. Either way, why even start?

Regardless of why students don't write, writing rarely and infrequently has the same result. When students do write, it's tested writing: rigid and inflexible short answer responses and five paragraph constructions. When teachers grade these black and white forms, red ink washes over the page. Either way, why even start?

Tested writing exists as ends only with perfection as the starting point. Growth assumes the clean, linear paths of curriculum maps, free from missteps and mistakes. Writing becomes disconnected from reading and disconnected from speaking. Wrong steps call for intervention and remediation.

The blank page never becomes the blank canvas. Notebooks never become sketchbooks. In short, writing never becomes artistic medium. We never write to discover, but write to support predetermined opinions. Writing becomes mathematical like two-step equations, just arranging words on pages. We value mechanics over meaning, content without context, isolation over integration.

But what if improvement requires exposure, exploration, and experimentation? There's an elegant solution, but it requires flipping most classrooms on their heads. Routine writing without fearing mistakes dissolves mental barriers and makes writing accessible. And since it demands mountains of paper, organization is key.

What simple move boosts student writing with compound interest? It's simple: Write every day. Write relentlessly. But start small.

Enter the daily writing notebook.

Daily Writing Notebooks: An Overview

The integrated writing classroom blends reading, writing, speaking, and listening with this maxim: Students must discuss what they write about literature. Many fear writing, but few fear speaking. Thus, writing must become grounded in discussion. (I will expand on that point in future posts.)

Writing notebooks treat writing as means and ends. They embrace the messy nature of both thinking and learning. They create the culture where mistakes are discussed but not held punitive. If mistakes are not learning opportunities, there are no opportunities to learn.

As routine, students write for the first five minutes of each class as either retrieval practice or anticipation. Notebooks never leave the classroom and live on labeled shelves in a bookcase. Prompts live with the daily objectives, a timer embedded nearby. Students write four entries per week at five points each, graded through individual conferences either Thursday or Friday. (If your points scale accordingly, skipping journals should mathematically wreck your grade!)

Here’s a rough sketch of procedures and policies:

Daily Journal Policies
Students will write every day in class. They will need a journal that stays in class.
Each class begins by writing a small paragraph (4-5 sentences). There will be four entries per week at five points each. Responses will be graded weekly.
Absences will be discussed individually.
Procedure: Daily Journals
1. Get your own journal and be in your seat when class starts.
2. Mr./Ms./Mrs. — will introduce the journal and answer questions when class starts.
3. Write until the timer ends, aiming for 4-5 sentences per day. When you finish, wait quietly.
4. When the timer ends, count your sentences and record them in the margin.

Each week begins on a new page and each entry begins with the date. If they start with four to five sentences, this means each week fills roughly one page. When students finish each day, they count their sentences and record them in the margin. If you do not emphasize physical organization, many will literally begin on random pages without ever including dates.

Students write about two main topics: retrieval practice and anticipation. By purposely retrieving information, students strengthen what they already know. By anticipating themes before reading, students build engagement. Both effortlessly integrate writing with reading through short discussions. Just don’t forget that integration helps prevent journals from becoming endless show and tell!

Writing notebooks must avoid tested structures like restating, answering, citing, and explaining. The goal is fluency, not form. When students write, they just write. Mistakes and all. Imagine sculpting: Quantity comes before quality. Stone must exist before sculpting. Once fluency exists as foundation, form becomes important. But stressing form without fluency stunts improvement.

How do you write the prompts? Consider these questions with their follow ups:

1. What did they read yesterday? What should they remember? What details lead to today’s reading?
2. What will they read today? What themes connect and build context? What questions resonate with their lives?

Once routine settles, expand outwards to other prompts. But beware that if the topics don’t integrate, they isolate or risk becoming frivolous. Daily writing can fall apart here. We will explore other prompts later, but be warned that staying too far for too long becomes a liability. If their daily writing does not connect to content, be prepared to defend writing as busy work or point inflation.

Grading centers on dialogue and weekly conferences. Mistakes are circled and discussed but not held punitive. This doesn’t mean writing becomes a free for all or anything goes. If students get the retrieval practice wrong or veer completely off topic, then it’s wrong. Correctness matters, but journals value meaning over mechanics.

As the weeks accumulate like layers of paint, flipping through pages reveal growth like time-lapse photos. (Forgive the multiple images!) Mistakes circled and discussed fix themselves faster than paper with red ink. Deducting every mistakes fulfills the desire to be right rather than student improvement.

The conferences themselves work best while students complete other work. (Even the best groups become restless and wild if twenty students form a line at the front of the room.) When discussing mistakes, write out correct spellings, discuss them, and move on. Compliment students as you see improvements. Never be afraid to flick back pages and show improvements.

Remember: A room of twenty students and one teacher has twenty-one graders. As problems arise, focused, one minute peer reviews go far. If students can point to mistakes, they can notice mistakes. Don’t be afraid to crowd source improvements!

Students will need regular reminders about daily expectations—and how they don’t change. For some, daily prompts instead mean “Talk to your neighbor now.” Redirect by saying, “Write about it, don’t talk about it yet.” Otherwise one students remark becomes the spark that ignites the blaze of the entire class being off-task. Complete silence may be unreasonable for some groups, so near silence, from a pragmatic stance, stands as the more reasonable goal.

Problems become predictable. Some will absentmindedly group their journals with their school books and take them on field trips. Others will forget to include the dates and start on random pages. Some will forget their pencils or inadvertently destroy their journals. (Composition notebooks remain durable across the year.)

Organizing the Blank Page

Clear organization means easy grading. Unless stressed, many students would just start writing on random pages without labeling the date. When conducting weekly grading conferences, efficiency means finding entries easily. Time spent looking becomes time other students veer off task.

Clear rules (cues) address this problem: Each week begins on the first line of a new page. Each entry begins with the date. The next entry begins after a blank line. While some weeks mean more writing, nine weeks mean nine pages. A thirty-six week school year means thirty-six pages or approximately half a one subject, seventy-page notebook.

Note: Of course you will use more than this. Students struggle looking ahead, but by second semester, counting remaining pages will become more relevant. If managing the blank page isn't part of your daily script, the wheels fall off the bus!

Zoom In: The Daily Routine

As routine, students grab their own notebook when they enter the classroom. Regarding setup, notebooks need a dedicated, well-labeled place to live. If notebooks travel, students will not bring them. (This undermines everything!) Not all students will stack them neatly, of course, so I recommend composition notebooks, which outlast spiral bound notebooks.

Note: Students should grab their own notebook—not a classmate’s, not a friend’s. Just their own. This reduces the likelihood of notebooks being lost, stolen or moved. If you supervise the halls during passing periods, micromanaging notebooks becomes impossible.

As students find their seats, they find the prompt with the objectives. Color code daily journals and objectives and use a consistent style. Prompts should pop! Seconds spent looking become seconds lost or distracting others. An embedded timer should live nearby on the screen. If students cannot visualize time, they will distract others instead.

Emphasize starting with the timer. You will need to explain and clarify. You’d be surprised how much context simple questions often need. That said, not every question will apply to every student every time, so emphasize questioning questions to build wiggle room. Students must have the space to respectfully disagree and find other angles. Wiggle room makes daily writing quotas more accessible.

Daily writing provides a window for attendance, but don’t forget to walk around the room. Proximity helps students focus better than yelling from a dais.

As students finish, stress waiting patiently and quietly for others to finish. Repeat the daily writing quota and going back to add more details. If students rush, look over their shoulders and give them additional prompting. Encourage them to write more.

If students miss class, follow your gut. Sometimes it's best to backtrack and catch up, while other times it's better to forgive. If today’s question depends on yesterday’s prompt, give them yesterday’s prompt. Either way, use common sense.

Next Time

Part 2 will explore my two main prompts and four others. It will also explore how not to grade before presenting how to conduct short weekly writing conferences.