Lucy Calkins Teachers College Writing

Workshop

It is an illusion that writers live more significant lives than non-writers; the truth is, writers are just more in the habit of finding the

significance that is there in their lives. ~ Vicki Vinton

Karen Erwin Hillside Marsha Moyer Hillside Denise Loera TOA Teaching Coach

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge

Writing-Reading Connection o Every child writes about something personally meaningful, choosing their own

topic.

o During reading blocks, observed students across several states participated in the following writing activities: fill-in-the-blank, short-answer, teacher selected prompts resulting in strict structural formula writing, similar to fill-in-the-blank exercises.

o As adults, we rarely write to a prompt or about an unfamiliar topic. For good reason, writing is called composition: We actually compose (construct something unique) when we write. This process requires metacognition. Students need structured periods of time to compose continuous text about something meaningful. Writing differentiates modalities to practice the skills and strategies of reading for an authentic purpose.

o When students write about significant events, they are apt to use conventions of spelling and grammar because it matters to them that their ideas are communicated, not because they will lose points (Cunningham & Cunningham, 2010). They have to think about what words will best express their ideas to their readers, while encoding these words using known spelling patterns. They are also engaged in using punctuation that helps their readers understand their thoughts and emotions. While they are composing their texts, they think about the known structure of similar texts to organize their ideas and set up their page. This writing process is particularly important for struggling readers because it generates a logical text that the student can read, reread, and analyze.

o You will need:

o a meeting area

o a workspace

o a space for writing tools/ resources

o Writing charts to read the room

Environment for Writing Workshop:

Room Arrangement

o Students will need:

o Writers notebooks (usually grades 3 and up)

o Writing folders

oCopies of charts

oVariety of mentor texts

oHigh frequency words

oRubrics

oDrafting booklet

o Writing utensils, supplies, and revision tools

Materials

o Mini Lesson (10 minutes)

o Writing Time (30 40 minutes)

o Conferring

o Mid-Workshop Teaching Point

o Share (5 minutes)

Three Components of Writing Workshop

o Explicitly teach students their jobs. For example: o Today and every day in the minilesson, when I say, Writers, lets

convene, you will get your writing materials and quickly move here. Then Ill talk to you for a few minutes. When I talk to you, youre going to listen, because Im going to show you strategies youll want to use in your writing. Youll do a lot of listening during that first part of the minilesson, no talking. This introduces kids to the connection and the teaching part of a minilesson.

The Roles Writers Play During a Minilesson

o Youll also want kids to understand the third component, active engagement, and youll go on to say, Then after I show you something I hope will be helpful to you, youll have time to try the strategy yourself, right her where were gathered. Usually youll turn to your partner and do some work together. Sometimes youll be helping to think about a text the whole class is writing together. Then, after the minilesson youll go off to your writing spots and youll carry the strategies with you and use them as you write your own pieces on topics you choose.

The Roles Writers Play During a Minilesson

o Connection

o Teaching

o Active Engagement

o Link

The Ten Minute Minilesson:

o This is the listen up phase of the minilesson and your time to draw students in. (the HOOK)

o Often the start of the connection is a time to nestle todays instruction into the context of students prior learning.

o In the final part of the connection ends with a clear teaching point.

o Connections help to contextualize the teaching point to come and also help students understand the relevance of their work.

o An effective teaching point conveys what writers often try to do the goal, and ways writers can go about doing that the procedure.

Connection

o K 2 o Tell your children that you sometimes see them hesitate to draw

particular topics because they arent sure how to draw the subject. Tell them youll show them what you do in that case.

o Tell the story of one child who realized she had more to say, stapled a paper tail onto her page for the rest of her words, and then stored her writing in a special place so she could come back to it tomorrow.

o 3 5 o Celebrate that your students are writing with some focus o Remind children of the writing work they have been doing and

prepare them for learning something new

Connection Examples

o We can teach people how to do something in the following ways

o Demonstration (most common)

o Guided practice

o Explanation with example

o Inquiry

o Decide whether the instruction will rely on a mentor text or not

Teaching

o K 2 o Reenact a writing episode in which you encounter

difficulty, consider options for an easier topic, and then decide to persist with the challenging subject.

o Show children the way one child uses dots to separate folder pockets for finished and on going work.

o 3 -5 o Personal narratives are often organized chronologically,

told as a sequence of events.

o Authors craft not only beginnings, but also endings that have an effect on the reader.

Teaching Point Examples

o After you teach something you will want to give kids the opportunity to try what youve taught.

o Students will do what youve taught while you interject quick prompts that scaffold them through the steps of what you want them to do.

o Students continue the work on the next part of the demonstration text as they turn and talk, helping each other generate ideas.

o The teacher may remind them of a few pointers doing this through voiceovers, delivered as they talk in pairs.

Active Engagement

o K 2 o Solicit advice from the class

o Assign them a word and ask them to try the process with you

o Recruit children to help you sort your writing similarly

o 3 5 o Write in the air

o Think Pair Share

o Interactive Writing

Active Engagement Examples

o In the link, you may refer to an anchor chart reminding students that the goal is not just to do the work of the days minilesson, but to draw on what is now an even larger repertoire of strategies.

o The link also needs to channel students to actually accomplish something concrete today.

o Send-off

Link

Examples of a Minilesson: Whole Class Instruction Fantasy Writers Develop Setting (5-8)

Examples of a Minilesson: 2nd Grade Information Writing (Forces and Motion)

o The rule during workshop is that during writing time, everyone writes. There is no such thing as being done. o When you are done you have just begun.

o During writing time, the teacher is free to support and scaffold students by conferring and pulling small groups.

o Teach students to become writing teachers for each other.

Writing Time

o Explicitly teach how to disperse and get started on their work.

o Ask partners first to envision what each will do that day and to quickly share.

o Have students get started in meeting area and disperse once they are engaged in their work.

o Remind students if they get stuck they can look at anchor charts and exemplars for strategies that writers often use and try to apply them to their own writing.

Tips for the Transition from Minilesson to Work Time

An Ensuing Conference: Providing Critical Feedback to Raise Standards (5-8)

o Mid-workshop interruption can be a brief pointer, reminder, or compliment.

o The share comes at the end of the workshop You will usually communicate a teaching point.

o You may share the efforts of one student or by asking the student to do so.

o Allow students an opportunity to talk with his partner.

o Give homework

Mid-Workshop Teaching and Share

o Prewrite/rehearsal (inside notebook)

o Draft: developing seed in the drafting booklet

o Revise

o Edit

o Publication/Celebration

For more information visit:

http://readingandwritingproject.com/

Writing Process

http://readingandwritingproject.com/

Strategies Habits

From Strategies to Habits

As you conference with students choose one or two strategies you would like them to start using in their writing, (such as: using transition words, using dialogue correctly, etc.). Put the strategy on a sticky under strategies. As you continue to meet with the student, check their writing for this strategy. If they are employing the strategy in their writing regularly, move sticky over to habits.