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Reporters Notebook - 0

The Reporter's Notebook is a thinking routine that helps students separate facts from feelings when discussing situations. It involves identifying the facts and events of a situation and the thoughts and feelings of people involved. Students pretend to be reporters to take an objective perspective. The routine clarifies issues and perspectives to allow students to make informed judgments. It can be used when analyzing stories, events, or personal experiences.

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106 views2 pages

Reporters Notebook - 0

The Reporter's Notebook is a thinking routine that helps students separate facts from feelings when discussing situations. It involves identifying the facts and events of a situation and the thoughts and feelings of people involved. Students pretend to be reporters to take an objective perspective. The routine clarifies issues and perspectives to allow students to make informed judgments. It can be used when analyzing stories, events, or personal experiences.

Uploaded by

TownEgg
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A THINKING ROUTINE FROM PROJECT ZERO, HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

Reporter’s Notebook
A routine for separating fact and feeling.

1. Identify a situation, story, or dilemma for discussion.

2. Ask students to identify the Facts and Events of the situation. As students name them, ask
if these are clear facts, or if they need more information about them.

3. Ask students to then name the Thoughts & Feelings of the characters/participants involved
in the story. As students name them, ask if these are clear facts or if they need more
information about them.

4. After a discussion, ask to make their best judgment of the situation based on the
information at hand.

Purpose: What kind of thinking does this routine encourage?


This routine is about distinguishing facts from thoughts and judgments. It helps organize ideas and feelings
in order to consider a situation where fairness may be at stake. It promotes the fine discernment of
information and perspective taking in order to clarify and make a tentative judgment.

Application: When and where can I use it?


Students can use the reporter’s notebook in any number of situations. These could include when discussing
imagined or real moral dilemmas or topics from history, literature, or science; after reading a chapter, or
watching a video or performance; or when thinking about actual events from their own life, etc. This routine
is most useful “mid-investigation,” after some information about a given situation has already been put on
the table. Maybe things are getting convoluted or there are disagreements. Perhaps opinions are taken as
facts or things are getting “messy.” Use the routine to go deeper into an issue to clarify thoughts about it OR
to even clarify what the issue is.

Launch: What are some tips for starting and using this routine?
This routine is best introduced with the whole class. Later students can work independently or in small
groups using the recording sheet on the following page. Students are asked to imagine they are a newspaper
reporter in order to differentiate the facts of a given event or topic from involved characters’ thoughts and
feelings. The stance of a reporter helps students clarify issues and points of agreement and disagreement by
getting distance from their own perspective or initial understanding of a given situation. Draw a 4x4 grid.
Along the top write “Clear” and “Need to Check.” Down the side write “Facts & Events” and “Thoughts &
Feelings.” List responses in the appropriate portion of the grid. Make sure kids talk about the characters, not
their own thoughts or feelings. Once the notebook is completed, the routine asks the students to make an
informed judgment.

Share your experience with this thinking routine on social media using the hashtags #PZThinkingRoutines and #ReportersNotebook.

This thinking routine was developed as part of the Visible Thinking project
at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.
HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Explore more Thinking Routines at pz.harvard.edu/thinking-routines
© 2019 President and Fellows of Harvard College and Project Zero. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND). This license allows users to share this work
with others, but it cannot be used commercially. To reference this work, please use the following: The Reporter’s Notebook thinking routine was developed by Project Zero, a research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Reporter’s Notebook, cont’d

Share your experience with this thinking routine on social media using the hashtags #PZThinkingRoutines and #ReportersNotebook.

This thinking routine was developed as part of the Visible Thinking project
at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.
HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
Explore more Thinking Routines at pz.harvard.edu/thinking-routines
© 2019 President and Fellows of Harvard College and Project Zero. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND). This license allows users to share this work
with others, but it cannot be used commercially. To reference this work, please use the following: The Reporter’s Notebook thinking routine was developed by Project Zero, a research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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