Writing booklets make a useful organizing tool for writing and revising. K-2 students can use booklets to write first drafts.

Students in grades 2 through middle school might use writing booklets as a revision strategy. By getting away from one linear page and dividing their writing into parts, they understand immediately and visually what parts are spare and which are overwritten. They examine the details on each sheet to see if they go together.

Several writing experts have helped shape my use of booklets. Here are exerpts from their books that have influenced me:

Showing students how stories build

Horn, M. & Giacobbe, M.E., (2007) Talking, Drawing, Writing: Lessons for Our Youngest Writers, Portland, Stenhouse Publishers.

Booklets are made up of many pages and therefore show children that stories build, one part upon the next. What is most important is that the formal booklet says, You have a lot to say about this. Built into the structure of the booklet is an expectation for fullness of information. [A booklet] lends itself to writing sentences and paragraphs. This may be a by-product of working in booklets, but when children tell one part of a story on each page, they almost always write a complete thought. Teachers often worry about how to teach young children to write in full sentences, yet in these booklets, most children write one sentence per page. Eventually, as they extend their thinking on each page, these simple sentences become elaborated thoughts about one particular idea, and instead of one sentence per page, they’re writing a paragraph per page (p.150-151).

Tapping all seven intellectual dispositions

Ray, K.W. & Glover, M. (2008) Already Ready: Nurturing Writers in Preschool and Kindergarten, N.H. Heinemann.

The act of making a book clearly requires a writer to devise something in his mind and then use writing to capture the design. Making a book from an idea all the way through blank pages to a finished text is a project; and project of any kind are privileged and encouraged because they require children to work from most, if not all, of the seven intellectual dispositions: problem-solving and reasoning, questioning and problem posing, keen observation – gathering data through all the senses, imagining, innovating, and responding with wonder and awe, intellectually risk-taking, thinking independently, and persistence (p. 23).

Hands-on demonstration of story structure

Horn, M. & Giacobbe, M.E., (2007) Talking, Drawing, Writing: Lessons for Our Youngest Writers, Portland, Stenhouse Publishers.

The booklet allows us to address more sophisticated elements of craft as well. By closely looking at and imitating what other writers and illustrators do, these young writers use elements of foreshadowing, suspense, and integrity before they ever learn the literary terms. When they use these elements in their writing, we show them what they have done and explain why it makes the piece of writing effective. Having that information will allow them to use it intentionally in another piece of work at another time (p. 151).

NEXT: Add, Subtract, Combine or Rearrange - without copying over!

"The booklet provides a concrete way to address story structure, telling one part on each page, making sure the illustrations and the text go together, and other aspects of craft that have to do with organizing and ordering a cohesive story." – Horn and Giacobbe

A resource for people passionate about helping students write well, compiled by Karen Haag