Notebook Connections

In Notebook Connections: Strategies for the Reader's Notebook , author Aimee Buckner focuses on the reading workshop and how teachers can transform students from couch potato- readers who read and answer basic questions about a text to readers who critically think beyond their reading. Buckner's fourth grade students use reader's notebooks as a place to document their thinking about a text and explore ideas without every entry being judged or graded as evidence of their reading progress. Buckner describes her model as flexible enough for students to respond in a variety of ways yet structured enough to provide explicit instruction. Inside Notebook Connections, you'll find: - Ways to launch, develop, and fine-tune a reader's notebook program - Teacher-guided lessons for each chapter - Assessment tips to review student growth and comprehension levels - How to select the strategies that work for them and incorporate into the workshop Notebook Connections provides a comprehensive model for making reader's notebooks the centerpiece of your reading workshop. Reader's notebooks become a bridge that helps students make connections between ideas, texts, strategies, and their work as readers and writers.

Aimee Buckner has taught children in grades 3-6 and is currently teaching fourth graders at Brookwood Elementary School in Georgia. As a specialist in both reading and writing instruction, she speaks at national and regional literacy conferences around the country, including NCTE and IRA. Notebook Know-How eloquently develops a process for the assessment of writer's notebooks that actively involves the students. Buckner describes a process of self-evaluation, which demands that students reread and re?ect thoughtfully on their own writing and their process of writing development. Writing self-re?ection is a highly valued skill, and its inclusion in Notebook Know-How makes this book a very strong guide for any educator interested in using writer's notebooks.

Chapter 1: Reading, Writing, and Harvesting Hope; Chapter 2: Invitations: Getting to Know Students as Readers; Chapter 3: From Comprehension Strategies to Notebooks; Chapter 4: Reading Like a Writer; Chapter 5: Beneath the Story: Discovering Hidden Layers; Chapter 6: Assessment: A Tool for Teaching in the Now