Robert Fisher

Teaching thinking and creativity

Developing creative minds and creative futures

Think books: Writing to Learn

© Robert Fisher

A version of this paper appeared in Teaching Thinking, Spring 2004 pp18-23, and reprinted in Kingston LEA (2005) A Learning and Teaching Framework 4, pp22-31

Fetch me a pen, I need to think . Voltaire

A think book is a home for my thinking. Claire, aged 10

To think well you need a brain, but sometimes it helps to have a pen too - and a book. A ‘think book’ can offer a space for thinking and writing about matters of importance. And you are never too young, or too old, to begin one!

What are think books?

A number of names are given to ‘think’ books, including journals, jotters or learning logs. In my first school each child had a ‘diary’ in which to record what they had done the day or night before. Little of value resulted because these, like many diaries, were not ‘think books’.

In the past ‘diary’ and ‘journal’ were used interchangeably. Dr. Johnson’s dictionary defined a diary as ‘an account of the transactions, accidents and observations of every day; a journal’. The French just call it a journal intime. What is important is the intimate nature of the journal. Pepys’ diaries for example were not records just of what was done but what was thought. As one teacher said when introducing the idea to her children: ‘I don’t want you to say just what you did but what you really think about what you did or might do.’

The nineteenth century American writer Thoreau expressed the purpose of a journal very well when he said it was a space where he could ‘meet himself face to face’. His message is that we live too quickly, without due reflection. We should find more time, and allow our children more time, for slow deliberative thought.

The stimulus of a think book is that it is open-ended - free from formulae or convention. It opens a place where you may explore your inner self, what you think and feel defined in your own words. As teacher Julie Winyard put it: ‘A frame goes around the outside but a think book is designed to get to the inside’.

It also provides the chance for thoughts to be preserved over time. Thoreau’s thoughts will always be known through his journals. For some of us it would be a help to remember what we thought last week! In a journal we wrestle with thoughts not fully formed, but as they develop and grow. They are better, as Thoreau said, for being ‘allied to life’.

In one of his notebooks Leonardo worried about wasting time, doing too little and doing it badly so that he would leave ‘no expression of himself in the minds of men.’ A journal gives the chance for a person – child or adult what they feel and think and to give expression to their uniqueness

A think book therefore is simply a general term for that which houses personal kinds of writing – ‘a book of one’s own’. As Mary, aged eleven put it: ‘The difference between a think book and other kinds of writing is that in a think book you are writing for yourself but in all other kinds of writing you are writing for other people.’

Think books in the classroom

I wish them to view the writing in their logs as ‘think writing’ (reflective writing) to provide the chance for them to evaluate their learning experiences . Teacher

Think books can help the learning process by helping pupils to share their thoughts and feelings as learners with teachers. In classrooms the books used for this kind of informal and personal type of writing are given many names. These include journals, thinking logs, learning logs, diaries, daybooks, thinkbooks, notebooks or jotters. They share a common purpose: to provide a resource for helping pupils make meaning of their experience. As one teacher put it: ‘My main aim is to develop every child’s confidence in their own ability to think, and to encourage children to express whatever thoughts come to them, inside the classroom or out.’ Sometimes such logs are private, sometimes seen by the teacher and sometimes used as the basis for an interactive oral conference or written conversation between teacher and student. One primary teacher has her children write regularly in their ‘Book of Achievement’.

Some teachers find the use of interactive journals particularly useful with children learning English as a foreign language. An early years teacher gives her six year-olds their ‘Book of Inventions’ to record their ideas for improving the world. Another teacher of younger children, keeps a journal for the whole class and during discussions, such as following a drama lesson, key comments are entered either by the teacher or a child on behalf of those who had offered them. She says that the class journal ‘provides written evidence of the children’s continuing critical reflection, and growth in confidence in using reflective language’.

Other teachers introduce the idea of personal writing through Reading Journals (see below). Logs can be about problem solving in maths, investigations in science, or observations about homework assignments. There is then no one ‘right’ way to use think books, but many different ways in which they can aid self-expression and build self-esteem and self awareness of young learners.

The aims of a Think Books

• helping children to think and write about their own thinking and learning
• providing a regular, systematic and structured means for personal writing
• offering the opportunity for children to share their thoughts, feelings, questions, problems, breakthroughs, confusions and concerns
• encouraging self awareness through reflective writing, in which there are no ‘wrong’ answers if what they say is honest and justified
• enhancing children’s self confidence and self concept as thinkers and learners,
• providing a means for children to report openly and honestly on their successes and failures
• enabling children to evaluate and make sense of their experience

One of the challenges of using think books is that students can get tired of ‘think writing’ if it is just seen as a mechanical chore. Many teachers find that once they have experienced the power of personal writing to help sort out ideas and express feelings students find real value in their journals. However there is a need to find fresh ways to help students sustain the mental effort needed to make the most of this kind of writing. There is no point in making it a routine and dreary task. Much has been learnt about ways to help students benefit from the ‘think book’ process but there is still much scope for continuing research.

What about children who can’t or won’t write? This is a problem faced by many teachers. One answer is ‘thinking partners’, pairing children in the same or from different classes. One school pairs Year 5 children with Year 2 children to help them put their thoughts into words. As in all paired relationships it does not always work. The key is to pair those children who work best together.

It is vital to ensure that children have had sufficient oral groundwork to support their thinking and writing. This is where ‘Community of Enquiry’ methods can work so well, enabling children to share, discuss and dispute together feeds them ideas for reflective writing. Their primary stimulus for thinking is speaking and listening. One cannot simply judge their thinking by what they write as their spoken words will invariably outstrip their written expression. Writing is just one way to express their thinking. It is a powerful but very challenging mode – and so they will need help.

How to use think books

Children often have learning experiences without really thinking about them. Think books enable learners to improve their own thinking through reflection. This builds intelligence at both cognitive and metacognitive levels. At a cognitive level it enables pupils to develop and demonstrate thinking skills, such as the skills that underpin the National Curriculum: information-processing, reasoning, enquiry, creative thinking and evaluative skills. At a metacognitive level it enables pupils to develop the ability to plan, monitor, evaluate and reflect on their own thinking and learning, to respond consciously to the thinking and learning situations in which they find themselves, and to record these before they are forgotten.

A Year 7 pupil once described thinking to me as ‘talking to yourself’. This is a significant observation since one of the characteristic processes of metacognition is inner dialogue. It is through the process of talking to oneself that one is able to pose questions that focus the mind and to think things through. If we want our students to become more mindful by conducting these inner dialogues then we must give them practice in ‘talking to oneself’. A think book provides the opportunity for just such practice. Of course such activity will not always bear fruit. As one child wrote despairingly: ‘I’ve thought and thought about it but I still don’t know what to do.’ (However his writing did alert his teacher and through discussion was helped to find a way to overcome the problem).

A Think Book entry can be written at any point in the day, but more usually it will be at the end of a lesson, session or day. Experience suggests that short, frequent bursts of writing are more productive over time than are infrequent, longer sessions.

There is no one best way of stimulating students to write in their journals.Responding to questions or comments can help overcome the ‘blank page’ problem.

Here are some starters which can be used can generate a written response:

• I think …
• I learnt …
• The hardest part …
• The best part . . .
• What I found interesting . . .
• What I think/predict will happen . . .
• The questions I want to ask . . .
• I wonder . . . How. . . ? Why. . . ?
• I think/feel/believe . . .
• My problem/solution is . . .

The following are some questions posed to her class by a primary teacher to encourage think writing:

What did I do?

What did I learn?

What did I find interesting?

What did I find hard?

What questions do I have about what I learned?

What was the point of today's lesson?

How can I use what I have learnt?

Introducing journals to a class

The following is an example of the guidance offered to a primary class by a teacher introducing ‘think books’ for the first time. Here are some ways to get you started.

When introducing ‘think books’ to her class teacher Julie Winyard explained their purpose but also gave her children the following advice to stick in the cover of their books:

Think Books help us to think about:

• How we think
• How we learn
• Why we don’t understand and what we are doing about it
• And explain our thinking – why do we think this……

Think Books help us remember that:

• We are thinking and learning people
• We need to be honest about our successes
• We don’t need to get stressed if we get it wrong or it is hard – we need to think “Why?” and do something about it!

I can write in my Think Book:

• What I have learnt that is new
• What I have learnt better
• Something I am learning about explained in my own words to show that I understand
• New words and what they mean
• My best thinking of the day and why I think it is my best thinking
• How I could improve my thinking

I can also write about my:

• Thoughts
• Feelings
• Questions
• Confusions
• Worries
• and “WOW – GOT IT” moments in my thinking and learning

The following are some different ways teachers have used think books in their classroom:

Reflective Journal

The act of reflection provides the learner with the chance to synthesise a learning experience and to reinforce what was learned. One way to encourage this in a Reflective Journal is to ask the pupil to identify the activity, then reflect on what they felt and learnt. The page is divided into three sections, for example headed: ‘What I Did’, ‘What I Learned’ and ‘How I Can Use It’; or ‘What Happened?’ ‘How do I feel about it’ and ‘What did I learn’, as below:

Another three part writing frame for a journal is a KWL grid. For this the page is divided into three columns and ‘What I Know’, ‘What I Want to Know‘ and ‘What I Learnt’

Metacognitive Journal

In a Metacognitive Journal, students analyse their own thinking following a reading, writing or other activity. On the left side of the paper the student writes: What I Learned. On the right side of the paper: How I Learned It.

Double Entry Journal

A Double Entry Journal allows pupils to record their responses to a text as they read. In the left-hand page or column, the student copies or summarizes what in text is strange, interesting or puzzling, or a given question, passage or comment. In the right-hand page or column, the student responds to this. The entry may include a comment, a question, a connection made, or thoughts that arise. Entries can be made whenever a natural pause in the reading occurs, so that the flow is not interrupted constantly.

Reading Journals

Reading journals, sometimes known as reading logs, provide a space for thinking, critical reflection and evaluation of what is read. They allow pupils, whatever their reading ability, to respond in a genuine and personal way to the texts they read and how the author provoked that response. They provide an opportunity to play with ideas, to question, explore their responses in tentative and uncertain ways. This may be important for pupils who find it difficult to express their opinions orally

Entries can take a variety of forms, including informal jottings, notes, ideas, diagrams, charts, sketches, lists, mind maps, questions, predictions, diary entries, letters, play scripts, poems, stories, as well as more formal writing such as reviews analysing character, plot, setting, author’s choice of language and so on. They can be a space for a ‘transformation piece’ where a student can experiment with transforming an idea or theme from the text into another medium such as a poem, a letter or picture. A ‘reading journal’ is about opening doors to a personal response. It is about making links to life experiences and other reading. It is not another ‘work book’, nor does it demand an analytical exercise as used in mainstream writing or literacy hour.

The following is an example of a class guide to reading journals:

What can I write in my reading journal?

• Does it make you think? Say what do you think and why.
• Does it remind you of anything you have read or seen?
• Has anything like what you have read happened to you?
• What is your favourite part? Say why you liked it.

• What might happen next in the story?
• What might a character be thinking or feeling?
• Write advice you would give to a character in trouble?

The following is a quote from the reading log of a Y5 child, aged 9, who has been reading ‘Angela and Diabola’ by Lynne Reid Banks:

I really do think that Angela and Diabola has been fantastic so far. I have never read a book so full of excitment, laughter and enjoyment! Its so perfect it surprises you and my favourite part was when Diabola strangeled the cat! But Angela seems a bit strange to me she’s so perfect. It’s the best book I’ve ever read!!! I think the best baby in the story is Diabola because she’s naughty like me well I’m not as naughty as her!

Writing journals

Writing journals can be used to enhance knowledge of what has been learnt, the practice of writing and of the self as writer. They can chronicle the creation of a specific piece of writing, record problems in the process or questions that are puzzling them. They can be used for autobiographical research, to record the pupils’ development as readers or writers, what styles they prefer, their strengths, weaknesses, difficulties and targets. They can form a written dialogue between child and teacher, giving an insight into how the child thinks and clues to ways in which they might be supported.

One teacher describes her approach to getting children to write literacy logs thus: ‘I wanted them to ‘talk to me’ about their reading and writing experiences. I wanted them to tell me what was uppermost in their mind, to share any questions and problems … I wanted them to view their logs as ‘think writing’, to provide them with a chance to reflect on and evaluate their learning experiences.’

Tom, aged 10, explained in his ‘think book’ what the writing process means to him:

‘When I write I find it easier at first to discuss my ideas with others, then have a go. I like to think what to write about without rushing into it. I prefer to write in rough first, because I can change things. I wrote this in rough first. Then I can make it better by changing things. I change things like boring words to unboring words or my lines if they are too long. I don’t like too much noise when I write so I can hear myself think. I like to write a lot of ideas and only keep the ones (sic) that are good, so it makes sense and sounds right. I then read it through and check for spelling mistakes. Sometimes it helps to discuss what you are writing with a friend. When I give it in I hope the teacher will say ‘good work.’’

Thinking about thinking: talking to write

A class of ten year olds have spent time discussing a challenging question: ‘What is thinking?’ The question is one they have raised themselves and chosen to discuss after shared reading of a ‘story for thinking’. The lesson is a literacy hour with a difference, for it has been given over to ‘philosophy for children’, an approach aimed at developing not just literacy, but a thinking or critical literacy. Anna writes, at the end of the discussion, in her thinking book:

Thinking is a state of mind. It is divided into two regions, Choice and Pleasure. Choice covers everyday choices, such as what to do at wet play, to serious choices, like whether to go to college. Pleasure covers all other kinds of thinking. Guessing is not thinking. Thinking is life. We could not live without thinking. Dreaming is the only exception. The two regions of Choice and Pleasure do not cover it. Dreams are very strange because your body and mind do not control them. They are almost not thinking. What is a dream?

In another class the teacher gives children a ‘thinking frame’ to help stimulate response to discussion in a community of enquiry: Here is the frame with examples of pupils' comments.

Thinking about thinking

Asking questions

Did I/we ask good questions? I’m not too sure we asked good questions or not.

What kinds of questions? We asked questions like ‘Would a school be a school without rules?’

Discussing

Did I/we have a good discussion? I think we did have a good discussion becausewe learnt a lot about each others’ opinions.

Listening

Did I/we listen well?

Did we build on each others’ ideas? Most of us did expand on others’ ideas, and we agreed or disagreed when we listened to comments.

Speaking

Did we explain our ideas clearly? Most people gave interesting, clear suggestions, buta few weren’t sensible.

Did everyone have a chance to speak? Not everyone saidsomething,probably because there wasn’t enough time.

Reasoning

Did I/we give good reasons? Most of us gave very good reasons for our answers.

Were we willing to change our minds? We were willing to change our minds sometimes ifwe realised we weren’t necessarily right

Thinking about thinking

Did I/we learn anything? People learnt to have mature discussion and learnt about different ways of thinking…

Planning our learning

What do I/we need to remember? I/we need to remember to be polite, and contributeas many relevant ideas as you can, listen to others.

(from Fisher & Hogan 2002)

Discussion provides the necessary ‘oral groundwork’ for think writing. Discussion with children might take place in circle time or in a community of enquiry. Here Anna, an able ten year old, writes in her ‘thinking book’ her thoughts after a discussion of the question: ‘Why did God not make us perfect?’:

I know why God did not make us perfect, if he did we would simply be more angels. God wanted humans to be people who could make their own choices, not saints who were so perfect that they obeyed his every wish. I think that God gives us life like a test. If you pass you go to a higher level. If you fail you take the test again . So if you lead a good life you are born again in a higher position. If you just aren’t good enough you stay in the same position. If you lead a wicked life you are demoted to an animal or plant, and stay as that for a lifetime as punishment, then you are given another go at the test. When/if you reach the highest level, and still lead a good life (which gets harder to do as you get richer and more important) you are admitted to heaven. That explains why there are so few angels that we know of.

(from ‘Teaching Thinking’ by Robert Fisher p 242)

The following are some examples of thinking ‘prompts’ and how children have responded in their think books in Years 1 to Year 6 (from Queen’s Primary School).

Year 1

Thinking about learning

What did I learn? Being a good talker helps you answer questions.

What did I find hard? I didn’t know where the full stops should go.

What could I do better next time? I could not rush so much.

Year 2

Thinking about thinking

What was my best thinking this week? Recorders because I realised I can really do it!

What was my worst thinking? I wasn’t thinking about my numbers and made mistakes

How could I make my thinking better? Concentrating means doing more thinking.

Year 3

Thinking about reading

Why do need to be able to read? If you need to read and your stuck anywhere and you have the book to help you and you can’t read it, then you’ll just be stuck and sunk!

Year 4

Thinking about behaviour

What stops me from achieving? … I am distracted by my dad moveing house

How am I going to reach my target? Try and be more focused on my work so I don’t talk

How can I help the class? To tell people to stop fiddling, talking or being silly

Year 5

Thinking about learning languages

Do you find learning foreign languages I find learning foreign languages hard because

easy or difficult? Why do you think that is? I have a very short memory and I just blank

What makes it easier to learn languages? out completely …

Year 6

Thinking about thinking logs

Is it a good idea to have a think book? Yes, because it makes you think more clearly and makes you feel more decisive about things.

No, because sometimes you feel like you don’t want to write your thoughts down …

Conclusion

For some children a think book is special because you ‘can put some of my private things down’ and ‘this is the one book that doesn’t get marked.’ One of the downsides they note is that ‘it takes up time’. But if thinking is how we make sense of learning and life then finding time to think through writing – as well as through speaking and listening, reading and doing – can be time well spent. It gives you the chance to think back and think ahead – ‘it gets you thinking before the next lesson’ as one child put it, or as another said about writing at the start of a lesson: ‘it gets my brain warmed up.’ There are thoughts we wish to keep to ourselves but others that come to us only through the process of writing. A think book can help you think more (‘it helps me to have a bigger variety of thoughts and ideas’). It is an activity that ‘exercises the brain’. It need only take ten minutes a day but many have found it is time well spent.

Further Reading

Fisher R. (2003) Teaching Thinking, (2nd ed.), Continuum

Fisher R. & Hogan J. (2002) Thinking Allowed: A Window on Teaching and Learning at The Queen’s CE Primary School, The Queen’s School, Richmond, Surrey TW9 3HJ

About this paper

This paper was first published in the journal Teaching Thinking and reprinted by permission in Kingston LEA (2005) A Learning and Teaching Framework , Module 4, pp22-31. It may be quoted but not reprinted without permission. The reference for this paper is: Fisher R. (2004), ‘Think Books: writing to learn', Teaching Thinking, Spring 2004 pp18-23

Address for correspondence:

Prof. Robert Fisher, Halsbury Building, Brunel University, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, England