Writing Workshop
Writing Workshop is a method of teaching writing using a workshop method. Students are given opportunities to write in a variety of genres and helps foster a love of writing. The Writing Workshop allows me to meet the needs of all of my students by differentiating their instruction by information I see during Writing Workshop. During each Writing Workshop period, there are three main areas I like to focus on.
The first area is a mini-lesson. The mini-lesson teaches concepts, strategies, and techniques for writing, while encouraging students to write in different styles (these styles can be poems, letters, fairy tales, personal narratives, non-fiction writing). This mini-lesson gives me the chance to give direct instruction to the kiddos and model the lesson through my own writing.
The next area is independent writing and conferring. The majority of Writing Workshop is... writing! During this time students are organizing their thoughts, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing their pieces. We build stamina in this area as well. Once they finish a piece of writing we conference with a teacher. The purpose of the conference is to make the direct contact with each student and ask how their writing is going. It is also a time to teach them something that makes sense for their writing at that time. Some students work on spelling high frequency words correctly, some work on finding where to put punctuation, and others are working on writing voice and details in their stories.
The last area is the most fun and that is SHARING! We have an "open mic" Friday where kiddos get to sign up to share their published pieces of writing from the week. Being able to read their work out loud gives the teacher a chance to point out things that are to be celebrated and for other students to see and hear what they can do to make their writing better.