1. How Writers Work Unit 1 8th Grade ELA Writers Workshop
Immersion Day 2
How Writers Work Unit 1
8th Grade ELA Writers Workshop

2. Rationale: Writers use their notebooks to gather and record ideas, or “seeds,” to consider developing into a published piece of writing. Students will discover the purpose of keeping a Writer’s Notebook and begin using it for quick writes to record their ideas in a short amount of time.
Immersion Day 2: Keeping a Writer’s Notebook & Filling with Possibilities

3. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
You can hear how Natalie Goldberg describes the ideas in her notebook. Her ideas have to sit for a while to “compost into fertile soil” for writing.
This analogy is great for the picture book we will read today!
Read the chapter about composting from Natalie Goldberg’s book pages 15-17
Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

4. In, 2000 Lois Lowry published a book of short memoir pieces most of which read like short notebook anecdotes about her life.
In this book, titled Looking Back, she pairs the stories with quotes from her published novels, alluding to the fact that a lot of what she writes about is taken from her life experiences.
Lois Lowry background

5. Seeds growing to plants
Background
While I read what should you be doing?
In Looking Back she includes a short piece about receiving a shirt from her father.
It was a rather inappropriate shirt for a girl her age.
It was a man’s flannel
But her Dad gave to her so she treasured it forever.
She used the small seed of a memory to create the picture book CROW CALL
Seat turned towards me
Notebook open with pencil/pen
Listen for where Lois may have gotten ideas from other story seeds.
Listen for where she uses the “shirt story”
Read Lois Lowry’s Crow Call before and place sticky notes where you will stop and discuss.
Seeds growing to plants

6. Think about and Discuss
WITH YOUR ELBOW PARTNER
The “seed: ideas they noticed in the book.
Where the “shirt story” was used.
Think about how a tiny “seed” of a tale was used as the motivation for this story.
What other ideas could Lois write about from this story?
Make a Chart of the students’ shared ideas then hand out Appendix 3 Quotes on Writing and Being a Writer.
Think about and Discuss

7. Read the page of quotes and choose one or two that speak to you and write about it in your notebook tonight as HW. I am going to be looking for about 1 page of writing. HW