It’ll take me awhile to go through all of my notebooks to put everything I need into Evernote. Here’s a peek at how it looks on my Evernote Desktop: Click on the image to enlarge.Īnd this is how the “writer’s notebook” notebook looks on my iPad: Click on the image to enlarge. I also added tags like “boxes and bullets,” “graphic organizer,” “literary essay,” “poetry,” and “writing exercise.” This gives me a variety of ways to search for entries when I need them. Next, I applied tags to each entry based on the audience I could share it with (i.e., elementary school, middle school, adult audience, or general). I photographed writer’s notebook entries using the document camera feature in Evernote.

I opened Evernote and created a new notebook called “writer’s notebook.” Then, I read through my old notebooks in search of my favorite entries. A few minutes later I thought about creating a digital master writer’s notebook. The “master writer’s notebook” sat among the notebooks filled with writing. I noticed I’ve amassed a lot of writer’s notebooks in the past decade (see photo). In late December I looked at the bookshelf in my office that holds many of my writer’s notebooks. I gave up on my idea when the master notebook broke apart and went back to schlepping a few notebooks around with me whenever I conferred with students. However, recopying old entries into one master writer’s notebook was tedious.

Instead of carrying multiple writer’s notebooks with me when I conferred, I thought it would be easier to have a master notebook. I created a master writer’s notebook since my notebook writing, which I shared with students during writing conferences and in minilessons, was spread out in several writer’s notebooks.

A few years ago I thought I had a brilliant idea.

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