What is Writing Workshop?
Writing Workshop is a method was formalized by Donald Graves, Donald Murray, Nancie Atwell and other professors at The University of New Hampshire. Since then, Lucy Calkins has extensively researched, written and taught this methodology to teachers at Columbia. Writing Workshop has at it’s core the goal of creating cognitive habits in children that will allow them to see themselves as authors and be writers for the rest of their lives.
These are the principles on which it is typically based:
•students get to choose their own topics,
•they will learn to see writing as a process,
•they’re writing will be authentic,
•they will become independent writers and
•they write during school hours. That’s not to say they will not write in other settings like for homework, but children must write and work on their processes during class time.
Writing Workshop is used in every grade. Depending on the developmental needs of students, the teacher acts more or less as a mentor and fellow author, instead of as an expert. Teachers using writing workshop often model effective writing practices through analyzing their own writing or the writing of volunteer classmates. Conferencing with individual students about their writing during class is commonly used to give feedback that students see not as critical but as helpful. Direct instruction is used sparingly in the form of what Atwell calls mini-lessons, at the beginning of sessions, in the middle of sessions or near the end of sessions to give brief, practical and accessible advice to the whole class about procedures, common understandings and reflections on their processes. Workshop sessions sometimes conclude with a student volunteer who reads his or her writing aloud to the class.
During each workshop, students are given time to do any or all of these:
•write independently,
•revise independently,
•to conference with the teacher,
•to conduct research on a topic,
•to read texts that may inform their writing,
•to revise collaboratively,
•to use checklists for editing,
•to explore new topics, to brainstorm,
•to freewrite, work in groups or pairs reading one another’s writing and giving each other feedback.
•publishing writing in a class journal or blog is often another part of writers’ workshop as is
•portfolio management and self assessment.
Students explore their own writing processes by discussing how they write, with their teacher during conferences, with their classmates during group work and with themselves in their writer’s journals. This way they become aware or metacognitive of their own best practices. Each student moves through his or her own process and at his or her own pace. That is not to say that deadlines are not used, but often they are more like guidelines for various steps in the process.
What is an example of what happens over the course of 20 days of instruction at the middle or high school level, using writing workshop?
Students explore ideas for writing through freewriting, brainstorming, reading and discussing topics in class (Days 1–4)
Students choose an idea for a topic and genre (Days 4–5)
Students plan how they will write their draft (Days 5–6)
Students write drafts (Days 6–8)
Students share (in groups, in conferences or with entire class) their drafts (Days 8–10)
Students revise their drafts (Days 10–11)
Students share (in groups, in conferences or with entire class) their revised drafts (Days 11–13)
Students consider grammar and proofread for format (13–14)
Students share and even publish their writing (14–16)
Students celebrate their writing (16–17)
Students reflect on their processes for writing, on their strengths and weaknesses as writers and form personal writing goals (17–19)
Teacher holds a “status of the class” meeting to reflect on classroom practices (19–20)
What are some examples of how a single class session of Writing Workshop might be structured?
1. Consistently start class sessions with music, meditation, Q&A a poem and/or a story , etc. (5–10 minutes)
2. Mini-lesson on How To Write a _____,poem, story, interpretation of text, newspaper article, book review, college essay etc. (5–10 minutes)
3. Time to work independently on: reading, freewriting, brainstorming, researching, drafting, revising, proofreading, conferencing with the teacher or with a classmate, revising again, etc. (15–25 minutes)
4. Sharing writing is an important aspect of the workshop model. This is an extension of social learning theory. The teacher might start by reading something he or she has written, and then students are invited to read or discuss their writing to the class. Forcing or coercing students to share a piece of writing they are working on by having them reading it aloud to the class by or reading it for them before they are ready is dangerous. So, it is important that the teacher must ask students if they are ready. It is also important that norms are established around how the teacher and students respond to shared drafts. Those norms ought to be customized to the needs of each student. (10–20 minutes)
What are some examples of Mini-lessons that a student or a teacher volunteer can spend 5–10 minutes presenting?
•How to use dialogue in a story
•How to write descriptively
•How to elaborate
•How to start a story
•How to create imagery
•How to narrow an essay topic
•How to write an ending for a story
•How to write a narrative poem
•How to write free verse poetry
•How to use evidence in an argument essay
•How to write a thesis statement
What are conferences?
The teacher meets with every individual student to discuss his or her progress, process and to offer feedback. Conferences are short, between 5–10 minutes Calkins’s method for conferencing is well established. The teacher must “research” the situation, “decide” what each student needs most and “teach” them based on what they need. This includes more listening than talking. Sometimes the teacher only asks questions to accomplish this. Teachers begin conferences with questions to explore the student’s individual writing goal. Then, the teacher decides what that student needs to accomplish that goal. Next, the teacher suggests, advises and further questions the student, all to improve that student’s ability as a writer MORE THAN any single piece of writing.
Teachers take notes during conferences, allowing them to remember for the next time they meet where they left off, what the goals for that student are and to mark the progress of each student writer.
Feedback during any part of the workshop must remain positive and affirming, especially during the conference. Instead of “grading” or correcting” student writing, teachers using this method often read student writing without the goal of generating a grade or being especially critical. Instead, they use that opportunity to learn about their students’ style, interests, needs and growth as writers. They do provide feedback in various forms, but not as an editor. Instead written (marginal for example) feedback is posed as a question. For example, a teacher might write How do you know? Or Why do you think this? Or Is there another way you can explain this? As Nancy Sommers, an expert a responding to student writing says, “Less is More.” I think she may have stolen this concept from Ted Sizer, but the important thing is that teachers not give more feedback than a student can use. Otherwise, they may become overwhelmed and discard all of the advice, which is just plain a waste.
Because the workshop model often uses peer evaluation, teaching students HOW to respond to one another’s writing is important. Peer evaluation must be positive, respectful, provide feedback on the overall piece, and must explain how at least one part of the the writing is strong. It’s really best if the positive feedback outweighs the feedback that is corrective or critical. The teacher is the best model for HOW to give feedback to the class. He or she ought to see his or her actions as training the students to be teachers of each other, so inquiry is often the best form of feedback whether it is in writing or spoken, from a classmate or a teacher. So, teachers can direct students to help one another in group work or peer response sessions by simply asking thoughtful and open-ended questions. This gets them to think about the work, instead of fearing judgement.
The workshop model ought to be customized to the needs of individual classes and students by the teacher. Teachers must first know their students well enough to understand what ways this model should be changed to meet the needs of particular classes.