Writers' Workshop
Content
Writers' Workshop is a program that is used to teach the writing process.
Time is scheduled daily for writers’ workshop to provide opportunities for students to pre-write/brainstorm, write drafts, revise, edit and proofread, and publish/perform pieces that they choose to share with an audience (peers, parents, students from other classes, virtually, etc.)
An example of how the centres/stations for writers’ workshop can be set-up is below.
Some students prefer to write independently while others will work with a partner to get feedback. In writers’ workshop, students may choose to take some pieces through the process to publication, but may not finish each piece. A student may even be working on more than one piece at a time. The idea is to get students writing.
Establishing a writers’ workshop program in the classroom takes a great deal of planning and organizing. Because each student is working at her/his own pace, students will be at different stages of the writing process during the same class. One way to track the students’ progress is to use a “Status of the Class Chart” like the one below:
Status of the Class Chart
Name |
Nov. 14 |
Nov. 15 |
Nov. 16 |
Nov. 17 |
Lindsay |
5,6 |
7 |
7 |
8 |
Bashir |
3 |
3,4 |
3,4 |
4 |
Ben |
1,2 |
2 |
2,4 |
5,6 |
Caitlyn |
4 |
4 |
4,5 |
5,6 |
Jamie |
8,9 |
9 |
1 |
2 |
Jeff |
7 |
8 |
8 |
9,1 |
1= invent; 2=draft; 3=confer; 4=proof; 5=peer; 6=revise; 7=edit; 8=print; 9=publish
In addition to monitoring the students’ progress, the teacher is available to conference with individual students and to work with them in developing specific writing skills. Proficient writers use a variety of strategies as shown in the chart below.
Strategy |
Explanation |
Sample Activities |
Tapping prior knowledge |
think about what they already know about the topic about which they will write |
Brainstorm |
Organizing Ideas |
group and sequence ideas before writing |
Cluster ideas |
Visualizing |
use description and sensory details to make their writing more vivid |
Add sensory words |
Summarizing |
write main ideas or events |
Notes, journal entries |
Make connections |
Recall similar experiences, texts |
Brainstorm |
Revising Meaning |
Add words/sentences, make substitutions, move text around |
Reread, revise |
Monitoring |
Coordinate writing activities, ask questions |
Re-read |
Playing with language |
Incorporate figurative and novel uses of language |
Metaphors and similes |
Generalizing |
Main ideas and details |
Topic sentences |
Evaluating |
Make judgments about, reflect on and value their writing |
Self-assessment |
As teachers monitor their students’ work and conference with them, they determine what skills and understandings need to be developed. They then plan mini-lessons that serve to introduce new skills, strategies and information that help their students grow as writers. Mini-lessons typically take approximately 5-10 minutes and provide an opportunity to bring everyone together to focus attention on one specific topic.
According to Nancie Atwell (1998), “mini-lessons are the ritual that bring us together as a community of writers and readers at the start of each workshop, when we come in from the rest of our lives – from lunch or science or the bus-stop – and put on the cloaks of writers and readers” (p. xxxx).
Mini-lessons generally focus around one of the following:
- Procedural Issues
- Literary Craft
- Conventions
- Reading
Topics for Mini-lessons
- Writing Workshop Procedures (writing rough drafts, participating in writing groups, conferencing, parts of a book, using folders, making and binding books, using the dictionary, using word processing programs, making revisions, conventions)
- Literary Concepts (Beginning-Middle-End, Story mapping, Plot, Characters, Setting, Theme, Point of View, Information about Author & Illustrator, Metaphors and Similes, Personification, Onomatopoeia, Alliteration, Repetition, Wordplay)
Further reading:
http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/bestpractice/writer/index.html