Spilling Ink - Writing Journal Agreements

Writing Journals

I started reading an awesome book today. 'Spilling Ink' is aimed at children and encourages them all to become writers. I got about half way through by the pool this morning. I tend to fold down pages where there are great ideas I want to return to (I know this is will irk some people, but this is my method). As you can see, I folded down almost every page.

It has so many great and workable ideas I can use in the classroom that I know will help them find who they want to be as a writer. I am so excited about sharing them with my learners and to see their progress. We start our journals next week - this weekend, learners are buying their own or decorating the one I gave them ready to be filled with their scribbles and musings.

Learner Agreement

As I launch, I will provide a writers agreement. This is a combination of ideas from both the Spilling Ink book and another book I read recently, 'Notebook Know How'. It consists of a learner agreement, which they will sign and have witnessed - this will be stuck into their journals - and my agreement, which is conditional on their keeping to their agreement.

Both books have given me lots of great ideas to get my learners writer and playing with language. I hope to share some over the course of the year.

My Agreement

I will also be using some ideas from 'Rip the Page', which I started using last year. You can read about that here.

Benke, Karen. Rip the age!: Adventures in creative writing. Boston: Trumpeter, 2010. Print

Buckner, A. Notebook know how, Stenhouse Publishers, 2005. Print.

Mazer, A. and Potter, E. Spilling ink: A young writer's handbook, 2012, Macmillan. Print.