What is the most important component of an effective writing workshop program? The correct answer is “the teacher who knows how to teach writing well.” It is not a prescribed program, manual, or series of specific steps.
Regie Routman contends that writing workshop must include the following elements:
- Sustained, daily writing across the curriculum of mostly self-chosen topics.
- Writing for genuine purposes and audiences.
- Playing around with language.
- Conferring with students to respond to their writing, celebrate what they have done well, and teach necessary skills for moving writing forward.
- Teaching students what they need to know to write fluently and accurately.
- Doing what writers do to make a piece engaging for the reader.
- Publishing for real audience.
In order to include the essential elements of writing workshop, teachers must make a commitment to have their students write every day across the curriculum for a sustained period of time. How many times have you heard a teacher say she has no time to schedule writing workshop in the day? I bet if you asked that same teacher how many worksheets are completed each day, the number would be quite high. Reading this section helped me realize that if you truly value writing you will make time for it. I took a closer look at my own schedule because I knew my students were not writing enough every day.
Over the past few years I felt the amount of time my students were engaged in authentic writing tasks was being squeezed into smaller and smaller increments of time each year. It was time for a change, and taking this class and reading the text has helped me realize I am the one that needs to alter what I am doing in order to help my kids become better writers. As my first post indicated, I have built in 45 minutes for writer’s workshop each day. Along with this change, my students are engaged in more writing activities across the curriculum – math, science, social studies, and reading.
The teacher really does make THE difference. I had a friend that was terrified to send her child to school because she had no control over the curriculum. We discussed that it really isn't the curriculum at all that matters as much as it is the teacher. Good teachers would know when a curriculum is not meeting the needs of certain learners. Good teachers don't just use a cookie-cutter curriculum without adjusting it to their students.
ReplyDeleteYou sound like an amazing teacher who really knows her stuff. Wow! taking forty five minutes of each day for writing is huge and must take much commitment. However, it's true if you truely value writing you will make time for it. What a neat idea conferecing with your students outloud prior to writing.
ReplyDeleteI am one of those teachers that don't know where to find the time. My biggest issue is that our day is cut into many little chunks of time. The only large amounts of time are set for reading and math. We have very little control over when we are out of our classroom. Our principal does all of our scheduling and we are not allowed to change it. I don't know how it would work for the students to have 15 or 20 minutes of writing, go to music, and come back and try to write for another 20 minutes. Congratulations on finding the time and hopefully next year I will be able to rework my schedule into something that works better than what I have now.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me feel really good to read that the things you are reading and doing in this class are causing you to change your instruction. If I can do something that gives more children the chance to write, and helps you to make changes that are important to you, then this is a good day!
ReplyDeleteDr. Dobler,
ReplyDeleteI am so thankful that I am taking this language arts class. Your instruction, the format of the class, the other students in the class, and the awesome text were just what I needed to make some changes in my writing program that I have wanted to do since I began teaching at Royal Valley 4 years ago.
Thanks!