What is Writing Workshop?

In writing workshop, all students in the classroom work independently on self-selected pieces of writing. Students will be at different stages of the writing process. Students will be drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. It is a workshop, in the true sense of the word. During workshop time, the teacher moves from student to student, monitoring progress, offering suggestions, helping children write and rewrite their drafts. Writing workshop is structured, the workshop time has three different components. They are: 1) mini lessons, 2) writing and conferring, and 3) sharing. The teacher chooses the mini lesson based upon a writing concept or problem that a majority of students need. After the mini lesson, students go into the workshop. The teacher conferences with students while they are writing. Following workshop time, several students share their work at the author's chair. Students should participate in Writing Workshop three or four times per week.

Teaching Methods

A simple structure should be followed to allow children a maximum amount of time to write.

Suggested Writing Workshop guidelines are:

• Cross out, don't erase.
• Save everything - don't throw anything away.
• Write on one side of the paper.
• When you talk use a soft voice.
• Work hard and try your best.

Mini lessons: (5-10 minutes)

Children gather on the rug area while the teacher provides a brief, focused lesson. These lessons emerge from teacher observations of what children need to learn. The mini lesson could also be a topic all writers need to work on that day.

Writing and Conferring Time (20-30 minutes)

All children write during this time. Children may be working on a variety of tasks such as composing, revising, editing, and publishing. The teacher circulates around the room, meeting briefly with students.

Sharing Session (10-15 minutes)

The group gathers together to hear work in progress or published writing. The teacher selects children who volunteer to share or she assigns different children to share daily.

Classroom Activities

Writers workshop mini-lessons should be taken from the observation of your students writing. Here are a few things to look at and teach.

• Word Boundaries: Lift a sentence from a child's story and put it on a sentence strip. Have children read the sentence as you cut between each word. Have the children put the sentence back together checking meaning.
• Details: Make a T-chart with one side labeled boring and the other side labeled descriptive. On the boring side write a short, non-descriptive phrase (the cat). On the descriptive side, list words that could make the phrase more descriptive (fat, shaggy, orange striped, etc.)

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