Abounding Happiness

 What are some elements of a writing workshop?

The classroom is bright and cheery.

Fresh ideas, openness, and sharing are promoted.

The classroom is designed to facilitate the writing effort.

Reference books and materials for writing are readily available.

Students are encouraged to do their best work.

Papers are headed and labeled.

Students move through the classroom showing consideration for others.

Noise is purposeful.

Available technology such as computers is used efficiently.

Students are involved with a variety of tasks: writing, revising, sharing a draft with a writing partner, conferring with a teacher, brainstorming for ideas.

Writing is a priority.

Writing is treated as a process including these stages: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.

Tools of the Trade for the Writing Workshop:

The proper materials make the task of writing easier. Following are the materials and equipment that writers need:

A place to write with a desk large enough on which to spread books, papers, pens, pencils and anything else student writers need.

Supplies such as paper, computer disks, paper clips, correction fluid, stapler, note paper, pads, pens, pencils, scissors, envelopes for mailing manuscripts, and folders for stories, articles, poems, and ideas.

Books, including dictionaries, thesauri, grammar and usage books, author's stylebooks, and general references.

Computer. Word processing software that contains clip art is a plus.

Printer

Internet access

Access to a copy machine

Books about writing and writers

Magazines about writing

A desire to write

Rules for Working in a Group

To help make sure that your group works productively in the writing workshop, follow these points.

Every student should participate in the sharing of ideas.

Speakers should think about the points they wish to make before speaking.

After stating their points, speakers should give the floor to someone else.

Group members should listen politely to others.

The discussion should be about writing.

Questions should be appropriate and on the topic.

Listeners should not interrupt speakers. If they have questions, they should ask after the speaker is done.

If a listener disagrees with a speaker, he or she should explain why in a calm, clear manner.

Comments should always be constructive.

Planning Writing Workshop Lessons

Minilessons are the most efficient way of imparting information to the whole class in the writing workshop. The typical minilesson runs between five and ten minutes and focuses on one topic or skill. That amount of time is usually sufficient to cover the material.  Longer lessons take too much time away from writing.  A common question is how to write plans for a writing workshop. The following is a good example.

Monday

Daily Drill: copying weekly spelling list onto note cards

Minilesson: Spelling rule (i before e except after c)

Centers

Computer

Reading

Writing

Vocabulary

Fluency

Tuesday's lesson might be writing a thesis statement in response to a prompt.

Wednesday's lesson might be using descriptive words.

Thursday's lesson might be eliminating sentence fragments.

Friday's lesson might be using metaphors in writing.

A minilesson is not the kind of lesson in which a skill or concept is taught and then every student does an assignment that reinforces the material. Rather, minilessons should be used to introduce new material, share techniques for improving writing, or teach the skills students to need to use grammar and punctuation correctly. The information taught in a minilesson should be simple and digestible. The content of the minilesson will be reinforced in centers.  

Teachers should select minilessons based on the needs of the students. While most of the minilessons will be taught to the whole class, in some cases it will be useful to teach a minilesson to a small group that is having trouble with a specific skill. 

Do you need a writing prompt for today?

Here's one about travel. What is the best vacation that you have ever been on? Who were you with?Where did you travel to? What were some of the sights that you saw? What did you do? How would the trip be different if you had gone with other people?