Writing Ideas

We have been using small notebooks to brainstorm different ideas for writing. It has been a really helpful for students to practice generating ideas, which is an important step in the writing process. In Writers Workshop, students need to filter through all of their possible ideas and choose one "small moment" to focus on. 

Some students seem to want to write about all of the ideas that they jot down in their notebooks, so it can take some practice for them to let go and just concentrate on one small moment. 

A great thing about keeping all of the ideas in one place is that they are very accessible to students. If they are stumped on what to write about a few months down the line, they can flip through their notebook and find a past idea that might conjure up some inspiration. How do you like to genera rate ideas with your young writers?