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Aimee Buckner
Aimee Buckner is a third-grade teacher at Brookwood Elementary School in Gwinnett County, Georgia. She has spent the past fourteen years teaching and learning alongside her students. As a co-founder of the Gwinnett County Summer Writing Institute for Teachers and Children, Aimee has worked with teachers from kindergarten to grade 12. She is on the editorial board for Language Arts and has been published in the journals Language Arts and Primary Voices. Her book Notebook Know-How and video series Inside Notebooks are available through
Stenhouse Publishers. In her writing for Choice Literacy this year, Aimee will focus on new insights into using notebooks with students as she moves from a fourth-grade to third-grade teaching position.
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New Notebook Essentials
Aimee Buckner
Sitting around a crowded conference table, eight of my colleagues and I discuss the merits of using a writer's notebook with our students. What started out as a study of how a teacher can use their own notebook to confer more effectively with students had turned in a new direction. As we talked, we discovered that we all had different ideas of what a writer's notebook is and how it can or should be used in a classroom setting. . . .
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What Goes in the Writer's Notebook?
Aimee Buckner
I start off each school year with good intentions. My files will be more organized, my newsletters more concise, and my time more productive. I'll read more about teaching math and social studies and reading and writing. I'll be a better teacher by staying on top of the newest research and going to conferences. But none of that seems to be as effective in improving my teaching as solid reflection and asking hard questions about what I do and why I do it. . . .
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From Reading Response to Draft (VIDEO)
In this quick conference from a 4th grade classroom, Aimee Buckner listens as Summer explains how a question from the book Would You? Could You? inspired her to create a list. Aimee talks with her about moving from the reading response journal with this brainstorm to a draft in writer's workshop. . . .
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From Questions to Drafts:Conferring (VIDEO)
Aimee Buckner
In this second of a two-part video series, Aimee Buckner shares the mentor text Could You? Would You? with her 4th grade students, and confers with a student during writing workshop to extend the lessons from the text into the child's writing. . . .
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From Questions to Drafts (VIDEO)
Aimee Buckner
In this first of a two-part video series, Aimee Buckner shares the mentor text Could You? Would You? with her 4th grade students. Aimee explains how questions are a springboard to interesting writing topics, and models connections she makes to the text. . . .
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Old Elm Speaks Day 2, Part II:
Connecting Poetry, Observation, and Writing (VIDEO)
Aimee Buckner
In this third part of a three-part video series, Aimee Buckner shows how observation skills, poetry, and reading instruction come together with the mentor text Old Elm Speaks by Kristin O'Connell George. In this excerpt, students share what they wrote after reading the book and completing some observations. This is an excellent back-to-school literacy sequence, since the observation element of the instruction is a terrific excuse to take the class outdoors for writing sketches. . . .
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Old Elm Speaks Day 2:
Connecting Poetry, Observation, and Reading (VIDEO)
Aimee Buckner
In this second part of a three-part video series, Aimee Buckner shows how observation skills, poetry, and reading instruction come together with the mentor text Old Elm Speaks by Kristin O'Connell George. In this excerpt, students share what they read and wrote after reading the book and completing some observations. This is an excellent back-to-school literacy sequence, since the observation element of the instruction is a terrific excuse to take the class outdoors for writing sketches. . . .
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Old Elm Speaks:
Connecting Poetry, Observation, and Reading (VIDEO)
Aimee Buckner
In this first of a three-part video series, Aimee Buckner shows how observation skills, poetry, and reading instruction come together with the mentor text Old Elm Speaks by Kristin O'Connell George. In this excerpt, Aimee introduces the text and guides students as they begin exploring it together. This is an excellent back-to-school literacy sequence, since the observation element of the instruction is a terrific excuse to take the class outdoors for writing sketches. . . .
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4th Grade Small Group - Writing Paragraphs (VIDEO)
In this six-minute video, Aimee Buckner uses a mentor text to demonstrate how writers construct lively nonfiction paragraphs. The small group has been pulled together because the students need more practice in adding details to their writing. . . .
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4th Grade Room Tour (VIDEO)
Aimee Buckner
In this video tour of her 4th grade classroom, Aimee Buckner highlights how she arranges books, charts, and other resources to support the reading and writing of her students. . . .
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Listing Strategy: Conferring (VIDEO)
Aimee Buckner
In this second of a two-part video series, Aimee Buckner confers with students after teaching a minilesson on the listing strategy using the book This is the Tree. You'll notice that the students are writing in many different genres as part of writing workshop, and are in different phases of the drafting process as Aimee assists them. . . .
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Teaching Themes Through Keywords
Aimee Buckner
I have a friend who is a whiz at online dating. It turns out, you can go to these various websites and put in a 'keyword' and out pops Romeo! So if you love to read, you type in the word read or books and a catalog of men who actually claim to read pops up. Interesting. . . .
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Mentor Texts and Teacher Modeling: The Listing Strategy (VIDEO)
Aimee Buckner
In this video from her 4th grade classroom Aimee Buckner teaches the "listing" strategy using the book This is the Tree as a mentor text. Aimee talks about mentor texts, using her own writing as a model, and the needs of intermediate readers and writers during the lesson and interview. . . .
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