Information writing is usually a genre where students experience success in writing. Most students can come up with topics they know a fair amount about–I have seen hilarious and informative pieces on grocery store, shopping malls, steaks, and even things that smell. Because information writing has inherent structure, less instructional time tends to go toward teaching focus and organization, and more time can be spent on sentence structure.
When I am working in classrooms, I keep a chartbook with me, and I use it all the time when I am conferring or running small groups. It also serves as a coaching tool for teachers since I get many requests for pictures or copies of pages.
For younger students, I have found the following page in my chartbook to be useful.
My overall point to students is that sometimes we want to add information and sometimes we want to explain information. It’s really helpful for them to understand the difference between those two purposes. Depending on the student I am working with, I may choose to switch the sticky notes in my chartbook. For example, if I am working with a younger student or someone who is less confident, I may offer them just two choices for adding information, and then I give them the sticky note to keep. If you look closely, there are several blank notes underneath the top one. If I think a student can handle it, I may even present this page as an inquiry conference or small group lesson, showing them only a blank sticky note and challenging them to come up with words and phrases for the two categories.
For students in middle to upper grades, I turn to a similar page, but one that includes phrases for contrasting information, as well as adding and explaining.
This page offers a lot of flexibility since I can present all three categories of phrases, or I can present them one at a time, depending on the students in front of me. The sticky notes allow me to just pick them up and put them on the opposite side of the book.
In the past, I have taught these phrases all together. I have found that students have an easier time building their repertoire when I emphasize the purposes of the phrases and the categories in which we can put them.
Regardless of how you teach these phrases, they have the potential of really boosting students’ fluency and providing pathways and inroads for them to say more about their topics.
TWO WRITING TEACHERS 
Hi, I do have my sections tabbed. I wrote about them in a recent post: https://twowritingteachers.org/2017/02/24/over-the-years-my-chartbook-has-evolved-here-are-some-of-the-latest-pages/
Let me know how it goes!
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Timely, succinct and inspiring! Just purchased my chart book for conferring with writers, and this blog entry popped up simultaneously in my inbox. As we are writing informational text right now,
I am ready to use my new tool. just one query about the organization of a chart book. Do you
have tabbed sections for informational, narrative? Do you organize the charts by traits? Any suggestions will be most appreciated.
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Love this, Melanie. I started making my own chart book now because you inspired me. Mine is going digital shortly, too. I’ll be sure to share it with you!
I love the way you broke up the transitions like this – very helpful for writers!
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Melanie, I am loving the glimpse inside your demonstration notebook! These charts are wonderful, and I can see them being useful to some of our middle school students, as well! Thanks for sharing đŸ™‚
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Transitional phrases are one of my favorite things to teach young writers. I feel like the quality of writing always goes up once kids learn how to use them appropriately.
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Very useful. I teach secondary, but the standard of the students coming in each year is declining and it’s good to see how Primary school teachers set this out. Thank you.
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I appreciate the peek inside your teaching notebook. I will be experimenting with this. Thanks!
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I love the visuals you provided with your post. It is motivating me more and more to incorporate this type of notebook into my daily instruction. As always, thanks for sharing! ~Amy
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I am still struggling a little about constructing this coaching book, what to put in it, and how to organize it. I tried making a coaching book with page protectors and removable sheets. I still haven’t got the hang of using it.
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This is a great idea. I’d suggest changing the first line to “Information writers are excited to share facts and ideas with readers.” It’s more positive and more motivational.
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