Ralph Fletcher talks about watching for "seeds" to gather for future writing and keeping those seeds in our writer's notebooks. There are hundreds of ways to gather seeds and create seeds. Here are just a few:
Gathering Seeds
Draw a self-portrait
Write about your name and how you got it
Write memories related to favorite objects.
Write about a special person
Collect strong story leads from news articles or books you read
Make maps: bedroom, neighborhood, classroom, your house, etc.
A special 5 minute time in your life
Describe places you love
Glue in photos and write about them
Collect newspaper/ magazine headlines
Collect magazine/newspaper pictures
Glue in letters/notes from friends
All of these activities are meant to lead to some seriously good writing !
Sometimes we need to take time to collect thoughts and ideas for future writing! In my classroom every two or three weeks we had a designated day in workshop for gluing/pasting/etc. Kids would collect artifacts like those listed here and keep them in slip covers in their 3-ring binder writer's notebooks until we had an "Open Workshop" day. This was simply a management decision on my part because then I could be better monitor how much time was being spent on actual writing!
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