Structure for Writing Workshop

Over the course of this year, countless times I read this: to get better at writing, I must write – definitely a big overarching idea.

I get it – and every time I sit down to write I hear a little voice saying comments like: “You can do it. Just get started”; “You have something to say – so say it, and then clean it up”;   “you won’t get better at writing if you don’t put in the work”.

I am hopeful that over the years our students who participate in writing workshop won’t struggle with writing the way I do.  And, what does that mean for us?  We need to structure the writing experience in authentic, kid-friendly ways that will fire up kids to want to write.  We need to give them plenty of writing time.

The other big reoccurring idea: use mentor texts to show kids what accomplished authors do to produce a good piece of writing. 

Jennifer Jacobsen in No More “I’m Done!”  lays out a possible approach and values using what many of you do already – use the mini-lesson to teach writing features. She suggests:

  • Day 1 - read a picture book or an appropriate piece of writing – cover to cover- without stopping –Make sure it’s a joyful experience.  Use your voice to show the rhythm of the text, to thoughts and feeling of the character/s, the pacing of the book.  You may want to raise questions during this first reading – predictions – strategies that must be modeled before the text is revealed. 
  • The book you select on Day 1 is the book you can use as a mentor text on Day 2.  And, teachers can pull out a writing mini-lesson from the text.  

I see that deciding on the content of mini-lessons might easily be overwhelming.  Because I am such a novice on how to teach writing, I tend to want one solid book or one respected writing author and follow their suggestions until I get my sea legs – such an approach would help me plan a writing workshop approach. I guess what I’m saying is – I want some “meat on the bones” – I value contributions from the likes of Lucy Calkins, but she’s ahead of me.  We have had success with Jan Richardson’s reading model.  Maybe what we need is to find a Jan Richardson in the writing world.  I have read from some great sources on writing, but I don’t think I’ve come across the right author/source on the teaching of writing – a source that most of us would rally around.

The hunt is on – if you know a source, please share it.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Slice of life

Good evening  I am curious about your own writing.  Do any of you have a writing practice, such as, journaling?  Just wondering.  If I were a betting man, I’d put money on it that many of you do have a writing habit of sorts – if not now, perhaps earlier in life.  Please consider sharing a posting with us – or even on the bigger stage of Two Writing Teachers Blog. Last week I talked about the blog – Two Writing Teachers. This blog offers us the opportunity to share a piece of our own writing on pretty much any subject. You will find the means to do that under “Slice of Life” .  Just wanted to throw this out to anyone so inclined.  I’m going to push myself to post something.  Courage, right?    At any rate, my thoughts on writing focused on Heart Maps or Close to the Bone maps.  It seems to me that such a map would be beneficial for different writing responses, and most especially when we require students to write t...
Read more

Valentines Day

Carpe diem!  Happy Valentine’s Day!   Kids – and boyfriends and girlfriends– and adults who have special relationships with kids - that would be grandparents, for sure, want to show some expression of their love.   We send our cards with hearts and Xs and Os – and many of us spend a few minutes reading the sentiment inside the card – the thought needs to be a good fit.  Why not take the time to compose our own message to our Valentine?   I have been reading a fair amount about using mentor texts to teach the craft of writing.  Lucy Calkins and Katie Woodray (Wondrous Words) continually advise us to really get to know several good books – like inside and out.  What are the “tricks” of their writing?   What are the craft elements the author weaves into the writing? Writing gurus are reminding us to stop when we are reading a well written passage - “Hey look at that.  Look at how she wrote that!”  Try to fig...
Read more

Mother's day

Here’s an idea -  Mother’s Day comes in this final month and all of us can conjure up how our students might write a message to probably the most important audience in their live – their Mom. I think most kids can hang their writing hats on the following idea. The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown could be used as a mentor text to show students how authors like Brown developed a message and to create a written Mother’s Day message for their own mothers.   Brown selects several mundane important things/events and builds the case for why each is important.  She opens giving a strong reason explaining why the thing/event is important. She continues building a case for its importance with several other reasons.  And she ends each description with the same sentence as the first.    Listen to the oral reading , and you will see and hear the effectiveness of the message that is set in a poetic rhythm. I have given you a verse using Margaret Wise Brown...
Read more