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So Now You Know
What To Do, What Next?
Knowing where and how to start
Writer's Workshop can be very difficult It is hard to know how to
organize the students if the teacher isn't sure how they want to
organized!!
Before I ever start teaching
the Writing Process (Brainstorm, Draft, Revise, Edit, Final Draft and
Publish) I spend the first few weeks setting up Writers Workshop routines
in my class. Many of these ideas are the ideas that I learned at my
district's Writing Institute, so I cannot take credit for all these ideas.
These are all my beginning of the year writing
workshop routine lessons
in the order I teach them. After I teach
one of these mini lessons students write independently in their writers
notebooks while I conferences with them. Then we share at the end of
class.
Click Here for a Printable Copy of These Mini Lessons
Collecting A Writing Sample
Finding A Story
Building A Community of Writers
The
Notebook/ Planting Seeds and Watching Them Grow
Using the Writer's Notebook
Storing Materials in the
Classroom
What Conferences Look Like
What to Do When You Get Stuck
What to Do When the Teacher
is Conferencing
Stages of Writing/ Anchor
Papers
Collecting A Writing Sample
Day One ( I usually do
this on the third or fourth day of school)
Take a writing sample to stage
so you are aware of the needs of your students. I do assign a prompt
for this task. It is easier for me to compare students if they are
all wring on the same topic.
I do one of two prompts.
I either read The Mystery of Harris Burdick by Christopher Van
Allsburg. It is a WONDERFUL book by an author I highly recommend. I
purchased the poster set for this book. Click
here if you would like to read about this book. Then I have
students choose one picture to write about and explain what is happening
in the picture. We talk about a beginning, middle and end. I
tell them that it does not matter how long the story is, just that it has
a beginning, middle and end. I feel that students need to know that
the work is theirs and they "own" it. I also mention that every
story has as problem and a solution. However, these are the only
hints I give.
Another activity is a Dr. Seuss
like prompt. We read the story The Sneeches by Dr Seuss.
We discuss how he gives creatures made up names (like a sneech) and I tell
student they get to create their own creature. They can decide how it
looks, sounds and what its personality is like. The creature is
called a fleezle. Then I get them to brainstorm what is going to
happen in the story. Next I say I have made up a word. I don't
know what it means but I do know it is something you DO called snoof.
We brainstorm things the creature can do. Finally I give the prompt
The Day the Fleezle Snoofed, This is a hard prompt, I am not
sure if I would do this activity again. Students tend to get stuck.
I DO stress that story does not have to rhyme like Seuss' but has a few
silly words in it.
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Finding a Story
Some students find it very hard
to know what to write about in their Writer's notebooks. To help
solve this problem we brainstorm all the things you can write about and
where to get ideas on "finding" a story.
I read aloud the book
Albert's Story by Claudia long. Click here to
read about this book. We discuss how the little boy found his
story and added more and more to it. Then we brainstorm as a whole class
WHAT topics students can write about. I laminate and post this list
all year long for those who get stuck. However, most students will
not use it after the first month or so.
 I explain to the class the
purpose for the list and refer to it A LOT the first few weeks. Here
is a picture of the chart we created this school year:
I have had
several people email and let me know they have had difficulty finding this
book. Apparently it is selling for over $100 now!!! You can
use several other books for this same lesson. The first one that
jumps out at me is Author Writes a Story by Marc Brown.
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Building a Community of Writers
Discuss what Writers Workshop
looks like and what it is. Have students help create lists of what it
should look like/ sound like. Use this to establish the norms of the
workshop. Keep these posted.
Here are some examples:
Why We have Writer’s Workshop
- From other authors we
learn to write better and get information
- Writing is thinking
- Writing is reading
- We can expand our
writing by reading other writer’s work
- We can become better
writers
- Good titles from our
work come from many ideas
Our Norms
- Work quietly while
writing so others can think
- Sound out words
- To help spell
- Have original ideas
- Try your best writing
skills
- Work quietly so not to
disturb others and don’t forget what you are thinking
- Always listen.
Here is what the poster
looked like this year:
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The
Notebook/ Planting Seeds and Watching Them Grow
This is a day I REALLY try to
build up to. I don't just want to hand students their writers
notebooks and tell them to give it a go. I want to inspire them to write
and to use the notebook. This is easier said than done. One of
the things I do is share my own writers notebook. I have created
overheads of some of my own pages and have why I choose to write about
these snippets. I share the artifacts I have included (I don't have
many, this is an area I am working on.) and the word lists I have created.
I also make clear it is NOT a diary to write down what happens
every day, but it is ok sometimes to do this.
Here is a list of things
Ralph Fletcher recommended when I saw him at a conference:
What moves you?
What do you wonder/What is
bothering you?
What do you notice or see
when you are about and about?
Memories
Beautiful words, sentences
and phrases (even from other authors)
Fears, dreams and anxieties
Artifacts like feathers,
baseball cards, lists of favorite words, dialogue other people say,
pictures, magazine articles, newspaper articles, comic strips, etc.
Then I let students go and
have some time to write. Yu will get a lot of questions "Is it ok if
I write about..." Make sure they know it is their special, magical spot.
If kids get stuck, refer them to the list the class created.
I gather them back together
at the end and we share what we wrote about. Then I tell each
student since the book is their's I want them to decorate it in some way
because it is their special book. I have had kids use stickers, Yu-Gi-Oh
(sp?) cards, magazine pictures, puff balls, photographs, leaves (they
didn't last too long!) fabric. Whatever. They just need to
make it "theirs." Here is a wonderful
link from Ms. Newingham about how students personalize writers
notebooks.
Here is an awesome
link from Ralph
Fletcher.
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Using the Writer's Notebook
This day is just that, time
to use the writers notebook! First I start by having child bring
their writer's notebooks to the circle and share how they chose to
decorate their books and way. Then I send them off for time to write.
I do not conference yet, but I do walk around and check up on kids,
especially ones who are stuck and try to help them find an idea. We meet
together at the end to share some of our ideas.
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Storing Materials in the
Classroom
This activity is more a
management lesson. For this mini lesson I show students where the
dictionaries are, the thesauruses, the spellex's and how the writing
center is organized. I share how we use paper in the classroom (for
drafts and final drafts) and when you can use the materials in the writing
center.
At the end of this mini
lesson I students have time to work in their writer's notebooks.
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What Conferences Look Like
coming soon!
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What to Do When You Get Stuck
For this mini lesson I pull all my kids to the carpet. And we open
up the floor for discussion. We discussion things to do if you get
stuck and brainstorm ideas. I might guide kids to go to the class
library and look at books and see if any of the books spark an idea, we
brainstorm lists that we could create (I wonder questions, my favorites,
cool words and phrases, what if questions), looking at the classroom chart
we created on day two (finding a story). Then we talk about how just
sitting there is not a good idea. This year my students brainstormed
"Using your time to write!" as one of our norms/ expectations for writer's
workshop.
An
activity I did before we ever started Writer's Workshop was to give each
student a large piece of white paper. They were able to draw and
label a favorite memory or dream or experience. If kids get stuck
they can always refer to this for ideas.
I have never done this before and I am really debating including this
idea. I am really hesitant to include any prompts because I don't
care for prompt writing (unless I am teaching it as a skill because this
is how testing works) I would love to hear your ideas! Anyways, I
have been saving interesting magazine pictures and calendar pictures for
the last few years. I cut them out, glued them on construction paper
and laminated them I was thinking of making the pictures
available as a source of ideas. I can't decide!
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What to Do When the Teacher
is Conferencing
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Stages of Writing/ Anchor
Papers
Here are some examples of students writing from every grade level.
This is from the excellent site www.ttms.org.
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All Graphics are From
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