I've watched many WBT videos, and it seems that all of the teaching/learning taking place is oral - no one is writing anything down! (horrifying to me, the compulsive note taker and sticky note creator) I plan to use interactive science notebooks and expect my students to at some point during each lesson take notes. How do I incorporate this into a WBT lesson? How do I account for the many students in the class who are slow or unwilling writers? If I put a time constraint on their writing time, then it becomes illegible or unusable. Thoughts/suggestions?

In the videos, we like to show the student engagement pieces and illustrate the BIG 7. You bring up a good point! Maybe we should have one of our interns make a video demonstrating writing!

Have you looked at the 5 step lesson plan? The last step encourages implementing writing. Also, writing is a huge empahisis for us this year in WBT. If you get a chance, download "The Model Classroom" ebook and "The Writing Game" ebook for many useful ideas on writing.

Definitely teach your students note-taking. As far as the slower/unwilling writers, would it help for them to discuss with a partner before they write?

Your time constraint problem brings another challenge. I have used "quick writes" to teach my students to write within a given time, and to write legibly enough for another to read it. Tie these quick writes into your content. For example, if you are studying forces/gravity, give them 1-2 minutes to write a definition or summary of what they know or have learned. You need to model writing so fast that it is illegible, and model writing so slowly that you barely get any words on the paper. Then model writing quickly, but legibly. Your students need to know exactly what your expectations are. As you continue to do quick writes, you will find that your students get better and better at writing "on demand". You are teaching them a valuable skill that will help them throughout their education.

Does this help?

Deb Weigel