Thinking Out Loud on Paper: The Student Daybook as a Tool to Foster Learning » (1st Edition)

Lil Brannon is the author or coauthor of several Heinemann and Boynton/Cook titles, including Composing Public Space (2010) Thinking Out Loud on Paper (2008), Critical Teaching and the Idea of Literacy (1993), Rhetorical Traditions and the Teaching of Writing (1984), and Writers Writing (1982). She has also published essays in CCC, College English, Journal of Basic Writing, and Freshman English News, among others. Lil is Professor of English and Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC Charlotte, where she directs the UNC Charlotte Writing Project. She has taught middle and high school English and courses in composition at UNC Charlotte.

Sally Griffin is a coauthor of the Heinemann title Thinking Out Loud on Paper (2008). She teaches high school English at Forestview High School in Gastonia, North Carolina. She is Technology Liaison for the UNC Charlotte Writing Project. Sally teaches English methods and writing project courses at UNC Charlotte.

Karen Haag is a coauthor of the Heinemann title Thinking Out Loud on Paper (2008). She works with the UNC Charlotte Writing Project site where she oversees the Teacher Research and Presenters Collaborative and coteaches the Summer Institute. She has been a literacy coach, teacher, and researcher in North Carolina since 1974.

Tony Iannone is a coauthor of the Heinemann title Thinking Out Loud on Paper (2008). He teaches fourth grade at Nathaniel Alexander Elementary School in Charlotte, North Carolina. He coteaches the Summer Institute and Technology Week for the UNC Charlotte Writing Project, helping writing teachers use technology.

Cindy Urbanski is a coauthor of the Heinemann title Thinking Out Loud on Paper (2008). She is Associate Director of the UNC Charlotte Writing Project, where she coordinates the site's outreach to schools. She has taught middle and high school and is author of Using the Workshop Approach in the High School Classroom (2005).

Shana Woodward is a coauthor of the Heinemann title Thinking Out Loud on Paper (2008). She is Assistant Professor of English Education at Gardner-Webb University. Shana is former Assistant Director of the UNC Charlotte Writing project; she now coordinates its rural network for teachers in western North Carolina.

Not to be confused with a daily-planner daybook that organizes time, the student daybook helps organize thoughts - across time, across subject areas. It helps learners build lasting connections between reflection and application, in-school content and out-of-school life, even last week's lesson and this week's. In other words, it's not just a place to jot down ideas, but a place where real learning happens. Thinking Out Loud on Paper helps you understand the power of the student daybook and offers ready-to-use lessons to make the most of it.

Fostering deeper, more critical thinking, offering a place to process content and new ideas, and reinforcing the importance of students' own thoughts are just some of the many important reasons to implement the daybook. Thinking Out Loud on Paper goes well beyond rationales to provide ready-to-use lessons that help you get started and succeed, including classroom-tested, research-based daybook strategies for:

• helping students get started with daybooks
• organizing for a variety of teaching and learning styles
• sustaining daybooks through meaningful invitations and instruction
• evaluating and assessing student thinking
• using computers as part of your teaching
• conducting teacher research.

Meanwhile, Theory Connection Boxes, broken out by grade level, connect the theory behind student daybooks directly to effective classroom practices specified in the book, while abundant examples from real daybooks show you what kind of results you and your students can achieve.

Teach students that their thoughts matter and that their thinking is as important as their responses. Read Thinking Out Loud on Paper and the advice of the many teachers in it who have raised expectations of how deeply kids can learn. You'll soon see the student daybook is an effective way to support your teaching by giving students a space to consider what they've learned in personal, authentic ways that create new, stronger connections than ever.

Acknowledgments     vii
Introducing the Daybook     1
Why Call It a Daybook?     2
What Grade Levels Are Daybooks Right For?     3
Who Are We?     5
Some of Our Encounters with Daybooks     7
From Workbook to Working Book     10
A Tale of Two Classrooms     10
What Is a Daybook?     11
Why Daybooks Work     12
Theory Box: The Daybook: A Student's Process of Learning     13
Karen's Story: A Teacher Writer Discovers Daybooks     14
Becoming Writers with Our Students     16
Introducing Daybooks to Students     17
Karen's Introduction to Daybooks: An Elementary Literacy Coach's Perspective     19
Theory Box: The Daybook: A Place for Freely Sharing Writing, Ideas, and Language     19
Tony's Introduction to Daybooks: A Fourth-Grade Teacher's Perspective     20
The 6-12 Connection Box     22
Cindy's Story: Introducing the Daybook at the High School Level     23
Theory Box: The Daybook: A Place for Writers to Think and Develop     23
Lil's Daybook Opener: A College Teacher's Perspective     26
The 4-6 Connection Box     27
What to Remember About Introducing Daybooks to Students     28
Organizing the Daybook     29
Karen: Super Organized     30
The 4-12 Connection Box     30
Theory Box: The Daybook: Making Word Learning a Natural Process     32
Cindy: Moderately Organized     34
Theory Box: The Daybook: Helping Students Understand the Editing Process     35
Sally's Organization for Creative Writing Class     36
The 4-12 Connection Box     37
Tony's Organizing Scheme: Middle of the Road     38
Shana's Organized Chaos     39
The Ultimate Organizational Invention: Landscape Handouts     40
What to Do When You Finish a Daybook     41
What to Remember About Organizing Daybooks     41
Sustaining Daybooks: Creating the Toolbox     42
Karen's Daybook Tools: An Elementary Literacy Coach's Perspective     43
The 6-12 Connection Box     46
Cindy's Daybook Tools: A High School English Teacher's Perspective     47
A Daybook Tool from Tony: Adaptation of Smagorinsky's Body Biography     50
The 4-6 Connection Box     50
Lil's Daybook Tools for Reading Complex Texts     54
Theory Box: The Daybook: Enhancing the Social Nature of Reading     58
Sally's Daybook Tool to Eliminate Writer's Block: Metawriting     59
What to Remember About Sustaining Daybooks     61
The Daybook Goes Digital     62
Theory Box: The Daybook: A Bridge to Digital Literacy     63
Shana's Virtual Daybook: The Mindings Collage     64
The 4-12 Connection Box     74
Tony's Community Daybook: The Class Blog     75
The 6-12 Connection Box     77
Sally's Tech-Savvy Classroom: Daybooks Meet the Digital Age     78
Concluding Thoughts     80
The 4-12 Connection Box     82
What to Remember About e-Daybooks     83
Assessing Daybooks: Valuing Process over Product     84
Karen's Assessment: Creating Reflective Students Bit by Bit     85
Theory Box: The Daybook: Documenting and Enhancing Learning     85
Cindy's Daybook Defense: Replacing Tests with Reflective Assessment     89
Tony's Assessment: The Daybook Defense Goes Elementary and Cross-Curricular     94
The 4-12 Connection Box     96
Lil's Challenge to the Daybook Defense     97
Shana's Use of the Portfolio to Make the Daybook the Center of Final Course Assessment     97
Sally's Warning About Assessment and a Strategy for a Nonassessment Assessment     105
Concluding Thoughts      108
What to Remember About Assessment     109
Using Daybooks in Teacher Research     110
Theory Box: The Daybook: A Place for Teachers to Record Experience and Change Practice     111
Karen's Story: Keeping Track of Learning     112
Sally's Story: Reaching Hard-to-Reach Students     113
Cindy's Story: Pulling It All Together     117
Daybooks as Instruments for Change     123
What to Remember About Daybooks and Teacher Research     123
The Value of the Literacy Toolbox: Reflections on the Daybook     125
The Daybook's Importance in Literacy Instruction     126
Shana's Story: Critical Theory Meets Practice     126
Theory Box: The Daybook: A Way to Redefine Our Literacy Instruction     127
Reflections on Getting the Daybook Started, One Step at a Time     129
Tony's Story: Ten Minutes to School Literacy     130
Lil's Story: Learning Takes Time     131
Spreading the Word in Schools     132
Cindy's Story: Let the Students' Work Speak for Itself     132
Karen's Story: The Literacy Broadcast     133
What Students Say About Their Daybooks     134
Now What?     137
References     139