Uvalde writing workshop day 6

1. Writing Workshop
(Day 6)
Recapping Summer Learning and
Getting Ready to Start the Year!

2. What do student writers need?

3. 3 Things Student Writers Need
• Ownership of form and subject
• Feedback from other writers
• Time to draft and revise

4. What does this look like in the
ELAR classroom?
Writing Workshop!

5. The Essential Characteristics of the
Writing Workshop
• Choices about Content
• Time for Writing
• Teaching
• Talking
• Periods of Focused Study
• Publication Rituals
• High Expectations and Safety
• Structured Management

6. How do these characteristics
come together?
Day by day!

7. The Essential Components of the
Writing Workshop Class Period
• Mini-lesson/focus lesson (5-10 minutes)
• Writing time/conferences (30-35 minutes)
• Sharing time (10-20 minutes)

8. Mini-Lesson/Focus Lesson
• The whole group of students is engaged in a
directed lesson, usually by the teacher, but a
lesson my also be taught by a student or a
guest.

9. Mini-Lessons
The topic of the mini-lesson varies according to
the needs of the class, but it typically falls into
one of the following categories:
• Procedural
• Writer’s process/strategies
• Qualities of good writing/
literary craft
• Editing skills/written conventions

10. Mini-Lessons: Across the Process
• Generating Notebook Entries
• Choosing an Idea
• Developing an Idea
• Drafting
• Revising and Crafting
• Editing
• Publishing

11. Mini-Lessons: Show and Tell Your Objective!
Some ways to “show and tell” the objective of your
mini-lesson:
• A quote of advice from a professional writer
• An example from a published text
• A piece of student writing
• A piece of the teacher’s writing
• A story or a metaphor
• A report on a conference
• Some public writing the teacher does

12. Writing Time/Conferences
• Students work as writers (which may include
both time to write and writing inquiry) while
the teacher confers with individuals or small
groups.

13. Sharing Time
• Students share strategies, problems, and
insights from their day’s work as writers.
Sharing may be done as a whole group, in
smaller groups, or in pairs.

14. Starting the Year Off Well

15. What can you do to ensure that writing
happens every day in your classroom?
Consider space, time, and
community

16. Space: Design with writing in mind!
• Place for keeping writers’ notebooks
• Space and time for peer conferencing
(furniture arranged to facilitate collaboration)
• “Author’s chair” for sharing

17. Time: Keep writing at the center!

18. Create a Community of Writers
• Establish a warm, welcoming, safe, classroom
environment from day 1
• Introduce the idea of the workshop with an
emphasis on student ownership
• Engage students in collaboratively developing
class norms during week 1
• Model sharing your own writing with students

19. Week 1
• Writers’ Notebooks
• Norms
• Procedures/Routines
• Reading and writing every day!
• Establish the weekly structure

20. “A writer’s notebook gives you a
place to live like a writer . . .”
-Ralph Fletcher

21. The Purpose of the Writer’s Notebook
Why “Notebooks”?
The principle, the purpose—not the name—is
what’s important . . .
• A place for students (and writers) to save their
words—in the form of a memory, a reflection, a
list, a rambling of thoughts, a sketch, or even a
scrap of paper taped on the page.
• A place for students to practice writing
• A place to generate text, find ideas, and practice
what they know about spelling and grammar

22. Writing, writing, writing . . .
• The most important aspect of a notebook is
that it allows students the practice of simply
writing . . . in what ever form.
• Writing, rereading, reflecting, and writing
some more promotes fluency.
• Keeping a notebook is a process. (It) leads you
from one thought to another until you
experience the writer’s joy of discovering
something you didn’t know you knew.

24. Resources