Draw a large lightbulb in your notebook.Make a list of something you learned when you were _ years old.Another great read loud is the picture book The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant to get students thinking about family memories. Read the picture book Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran, then ask students to reflect on what moments in their own childhood it makes them think about.When I was _, I remember feeling / thinking / seeing _.Next to each person, write down a specific moment you shared together. List the most important people in your life.What was your favorite memory from this past summer? From two summers ago? Four summers? Etc.
Have students read these “10 Comforting Words from Dumbledore,” choose one or more to write about.When I need advice about _, I turn to _, because _.What “saying” or piece of advice do you most often get from your parents? Another family member?.proverbs) – choose one and reflect on the extent to which it is true. Give students a list of “wise words” from literature or other sources (i.e.Then choose one and explain how this person is wise. Make a list of all the people in your life you consider wise or knowledgeable.Below are a few of the quickwrite prompts I’ve come up with for each signpost, any of which could be broken down and expanded upon into multiple quickwrites. These “writing territories,” as Nancie Atwell calls them, also serve as an important resource for students, as they later draw upon these initial notes and wondering to write longer pieces.So if I want my students to write personal pieces of writing that explore how the signposts apply to their own lives, I need to get students thinking and writing about those personal connections in their notebooks. Regular, preferably daily, opportunities to explore ideas in their writer’s notebooks, quickwrites build fluency and confidence.
#NOTICE AND NOTE AHA MOMENT TEXTS HOW TO#
After all, art imitates life.Īs I started thinking about a model for how to use the signposts as invitations for writing, I went back to what I know is an essential element in the workshop model-quickwrites. (74)Īs Beers and Probst point out, the reason that the signposts are so ubiquitous in the texts we read is because they are ubiquitous in our lives. When a friend asks you what your teen thought of the party that weekend, you suddenly realize- aha-that your teen’s sad face over the weekend tells you she hadn’t been invited.
If you’re now a parent, you can look back on those long talks with your own parents not as “another boring lecture” but as your parent’s attempt to spare you some pain, to impart words of someone wiser. When your significant other mentions again and again that the garbage needs to go out, there’s a subtext to that message-and it has to do with rising anger! When the friend who always checks on you suddenly begins to ignore you, then the contrast with what expect, the contradiction of an established pattern, makes you wonder what is wrong. In Notice and Note, Beers and Probst make this important observation:Īs you think about each of these signposts, you’ll see that they appear not only in texts but also in our lives.
#NOTICE AND NOTE AHA MOMENT TEXTS SERIES#
* This is Part 3 in a series on how to use the signposts from Kylene Beers and Robert Probst’s Notice and Note to inspire student writing.