More and more I seemed to have a device in my hand instead of a pen. More and more I found myself wanting to link to digital pieces students were creating.

More and more I found myself wanting to take pictures of student work or record student voices. More and more often I found myself wanting to do more than record handwritten snippets of evidence, thought, and conversation. Saying goodbye to my spiral notebook with tabbed sections for each student was easier than I anticipated. Two years ago I gave up my spiral notebook I used to keep records of writing conference conversations for a digital system. We learn so much sitting beside writers as they work in our workshops each day. It doesn’t tell you he can’t wait for his time to write each day. It doesn’t tell you he is working to learn to stick with his point and strengthen his endings. It doesn’t tell you he chooses interesting vocabulary or often uses the language he has heard during read aloud or read in books. It doesn’t tell you he chooses a variety of structures to organize his writing. It doesn’t tell you Noah likes to write humorous stories. If I told you Noah was meeting the standard as a writer, what would you really know about his work? Describing our young writers with a number or using words such as “approaching the standard,” “proficient,” “struggling,” doesn’t tell the story of the writer.

Evernote tutorial 2021