Notebooks in the Composition Classroom

I used to be one of those people who collected various forms of notebooks as though finding *just* the right one would solve all my problems. It's a common joke. After I was introduced to Ralph Fletcher's Idea of A Writer's Notebook, I found filling notebooks, using them consistently, easier, and more helpful. My office closet is full of 60+ notebooks from the last 23 years. Since the beginning of Covid, I admit they are more journal than full on writer's notebooks, but I also keep a separate notebook of article/book chapter ideas that's a writer's notebook, as well as another notebook for teaching ideas and reflections.

I have tried over the years to get my students to see the light with writer's notebooks to no end. When I taught high school the interactive notebooks I had them create and use were great. Students loved the organization, layering, and interactive nature. But introducing writer's notebooks to college students, English majors, was a failure when I tried it here my first year. They found them constrictive, fiddly, and most of our last week of class discussion was about how much they (jokingly, but not really) hated them. At the end of that academic year Covid shut everything down, so the combination of factors meant no more tries with writer's notebooks.

But I ran into an earlier Tweet than this, but using the same quote:

"“The word text, like textile and texture, comes from the Latin root textere, “to weave.” Writing is rarely purely personal or purely technical and objective—it’s a mix, a hybrid, a text.” ⁦@Tom_Newkirk

This inspired me to start my Composition I class this semester with a textere activity. Students weaved together pictures and poems. They were great. I enjoyed starting class this way because I felt it set a great tone for how we would view things in class. Today in class we read “Rebecca Nagle on Craft Lessons from (a Different Kind of) Crafting" because it was such a great coda to our class. And students SAW it! Which was even better.

I always end up having books I read for homework that shape my ideas for classes. One year it was Ordinary Notes. Then The Trayvon Generation. Sometimes we end up using the book, sometimes it's just the idea of it that I use to build my syllabus.

These are the books that I'm noodling on for spring's Composition II. I've always loved Lynda Barry's Syllabus and have used it in Advanced Composition.

I also often bring these books in to SHOW students specific examples of what I was thinking when I designed the class, or chose a reading, or built an assignment. I also often revisit these texts, come back to them, when refining or revising something for class.

I think I'm going to try a version of the writer's notebook in Composition II next semester for a couple of reasons.

1. Students really enjoyed the tactile, arts and crafts stuff we did this semester.

2. No tech days and assignments are not only valuable for the different ways we think about things but also for the mental break it provides.

3. I talk a lot in class about process and revisiting ideas and layering and some students really get it. It is a struggle though to see through when students are absent a lot (for all very valid reasons, this is not a shaming statement) and may not complete, do all assignments. It's hard to ask them to revisit an idea or piece of writing if it's not done.

So I think first day- decorate notebook, make it yours. I'll provide if you need one (old school composition, by design not made for tearing stuff out). I have gone back and forth on accessibility of this, but won't have any issue with digital versions.

Then I'm going to provide an index they can insert. I figure I'll do this by module, steal from interactive notebook. Students can know what we did if they missed, see my example if they need to.

Then for the pages, I want to have a mix of notes, brainstorming, drawing, scrapbook-y stuff, that they then will "mine" to type up for larger assignments. I want them to revisit ideas with Post-Its and layer thoughts. 

I have three sections of Composition II next semester, so we'll see what they think.

I'm also going to have independent reading in all my classes next semester. This semester was just my Tuesday/Thursday classes.