1. Strategies for Informational Writing
Nonfiction Notebooks
Strategies for Informational Writing

3. A Statement to Guide Our Goals
“Writing teachers, however, should give careful attention to what happens between the moment the writer receives an idea or an assignment and the moment the first completed draft is begun.”
--Donald Murray (1978)
Statement to guide our goals

4. Goals: Pay attention to what happens before the first draft
Discover how a writer’s notebook can be used to explore possibilities for informational writing—whether it be topic, format, wording, graphics, and so on—before committing to a draft

5. Purpose/Non-purpose
Purpose: Introduce strategies for working in the non-fiction writer’s notebook
Non-purpose: Use every strategy Aimee Buckner suggests

7. Why pay attention?
“From trying out different kinds of craft to determining the organization of a piece, using our notebook helps us keep track of all of our attempts—successes and failures. From there we can pick and choose what will go into a draft and what won’t.” Buckner (2013)
“And with a stronger first draft, the amount of revision needed was substantially reduced.” Buckner (2013)

8. A Bonus
“…students can move from writing according to the teacher’s vision (or the state’s vision) to writing according to their own vision.” Buckner (2013)

9. Write into the lesson--
How do you currently use writer’s notebooks? What has worked and what hasn’t?

10. Strategies to Explore Topics
Writers read the kinds of things they want to write about.

11. Strategies to Explore Topics
Focus mini-lessons on comprehension strategies for informational text

12. From Reading to Writing
Writers notice what other writers write about and how they write it.

14. Writers read…and notice.
Strategy: Notice What do you notice about what makes a piece of informational writing interesting to you?
Organizational patterns
Topic selection and angles
Genre/mode elements o

15. Writers think about angles from which to approach a topic.
Make a list of topics you know a lot about.

16. Writers think about angles from which to approach a topic.
Strategy: Grow Topic Legs.

17. Writers think about angles from which to approach a topic.
Strategy: Take a Tour What would be in a museum about your topic?

18. My Museum Pieces

19. Strategy: At the Heart of It What Is Important for Others to Know?

20. Strategy: Better Questions
Writers look for what they don’t know. They ask questions that support the angle of their writing.
Strategy: Better Questions

21. Writers read and learn about their topic
Writers read and learn about their topic. They recompose their understanding so as not to plagiarize.

23. Click on this slide to see Aimee Buckner’s entire slide show from which I borrowed a four slides.