Questions & Authors: How private are writers' notebooks?
December 2007
"Questions & Authors" is a new, occasional series on our website, where Stenhouse authors address your classroom concerns, provide tips, and share their experiences. Feel free to submit your dilemmas to zmcmullin@stenhouse.com and we might feature it in an upcoming installment.
Writer's notebooks: how private are they?
What would you do if one of your students wrote "do not read" on the pages of his or her writer's notebook? If you did read those pages and found something disturbing, what actions would you take?
We put that scenario to three of our authors. Here are their responses:
Kelly Gallagher, author of Reading Reasons, Deeper Reading, and Teaching Adolescent Writers, believes that writer's notebooks and their privacy are sacred. "I think all artists, writers included, need a special place to dabble, to experiment, to fail without fear of someone else reading what's been written," Kelly says. In his high school English classroom in Anaheim, California the rule is that Kelly reads only those entries flagged by students. "Eventually, after much writing has been generated, each student chooses something promising from the writer's notebook and brings it out in the light for more drafting and revision. It is at that point I will see writing from each student, but the majority of the writing in the writer's notebook goes unread by me."
Ralph Fletcher agrees that he would not read entries marked private in a notebook, but adds that "privacy is never absolute. Common sense applies here. If a kid writes in his notebook: 'I think about committing suicide,' well, the teacher has the responsibility to act by contacting appropriate people," Ralph says.
Ralph also cautions teachers against making an unnecessary issue out of a piece of writing. "I believe that teachers should be less reactive and more understanding to what kids are writing about. A boy writing about weapons and war -- is that alarming? I don't think so."
He recalls an incident where a boy wrote in his notebook that he was interested in learning more about snipers. "In today's culture, this makes people very nervous, but snipers are real soldiers in real wars." The boy's teacher asked the student to run the topic by his parents to make sure they were okay with it. They were, and the boy wrote about snipers. "In the parent-teacher conference the mother told the teacher: 'thank you for allowing Nathan to write about what he is really interested in'."
Aimee Buckner, author of Notebook Know-How, advises teachers to plan for this kind of situation. "In my classroom, whether I'm teaching third grade or middle school, I am very honest at the get-go," Aimee explains. "Students may write private entries in their notebook. These entries should be folded over once, to indicate a private matter. I will respect the entry as private." The only time she will break this rule is if an entry is taped, glued, or stapled. "If they are, I will automatically open the entry and read it."
Aimee says that while these private entries generally contain nothing more serious than a cuss word or an angry ramble, she has run into situations that required intervention. "I have found out about physical and sexual abuse, an urge to hurt another classmate, and the desire to build a bomb." She says that having a plan to deal with these entries helped her resolve the situations quickly.
"Writing about life can get messy. Hurt feelings and anger are part of this mess. When a child writes about a harmful situation, it is necessary for adults to step in. If students understand this before they begin keeping a notebook for class, then writing about these things becomes a cry for help."
Read more about Aimee Buckner.
Read more about Ralph Fletcher.
Read more about Kelly Gallagher.
