A Writer's Notebook

Most Recently Read Book:

A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You

By Ralph Fletcher

This book is one of Ralph Fletcher's many books about writing.  Having gone through school being taught with the reading and workshop models, when I heard about this book at a school inservice, I thought I would like it.  I finally ordered it through inter-library loan from the library and read it this week.  I really like Fletcher's ideas about keeping a writer's notebook.  It is so true that in order to be a good writer you have to be a good reader, but you also have to look at everything with a writer's eye.  If you read a lot you can immediately recognize an idea that would easily fit into a book and then you have to write it down.  He spends most of the book talking about how to use a writer's notebook.  Already, after reading this book I had myself noticing things to write down.  Here's my favorite so far: 

At the Third Eye Blind concert, the group Low Versus Diamond was opening for them.  The lead singer to LVD introduced the song he was going to sing and said something along the lines of, "I knew this kid who had a Yoko-Ono-kind-of-girlfriend.  He had this Yoko-Ono-girlfriend and he just needed a song written about him."  And then he sang the song, but all I could think about was the way he introduced the song.  

I am super excited to set my students up with writer's and reader's notebooks next year and to see what a difference it makes.