When done well, peer workshops can be fruitful sources of inspiration, feedback, and support for student writers. When done poorly, however, peer workshops quickly become a source of frustration and a waste of classroom time.

The three keys to successful peer workshops are purpose, autonomy, and adaptability.

It is important to clearly define the purpose of peer workshops, including the potential benefit to the students' writing and consequently to their overall grades. At the beginning of the semester, take the time to discuss why you have workshops in your class. For instance, peer writing groups serve as an opportunity for each student to

practice offering and receiving writing feedback,

practice making decisions about their own writing based on feedback,

improve analysis, revision, editing, and proofreading skills,

read many models of other authors' writing,

practice working and communicating in groups, etc.

If peer workshops are part of the students' grade, highlight that fact early. You may also consider giving a handout or presentation on workshop instructions. Here are sample workshop requirements, questions, and checklists.

Additional mini-purpose conversations should ideally happen before and after every workshop session. A purpose statement before a workshop might go something like this:

The overarching purpose of improving students' writing skills will stay the same throughout the semester, but the purpose of individual workshops will change. For the second draft of an article, for instance, an instructor may highlight editing skills: How does it sound? And how can you make it sound better? This workshop may look exclusively at sentence structure and word choice. Other workshops may focus on expansion, concision (PDF), evidence, introductions, conclusions (PDF), titles, research, documentation, formatting, etc.

Instructors often connect with students and show dedication by doing what their students are doing with them. If students are writing on last night's reading for ten minutes, the instructor is writing, too. If students are working in groups, the instructor is moving from group to group engaging and supporting them. Students sincerely appreciate these small moves, and instructors read about them on their evaluations often.

The one exception to this philosophy is group workshops. After modeling what peer workshops should look like (perhaps by bringing in something you are writing and encouraging the class to give feedback), and after making explicit the purpose of workshopping in general and today's workshop specifically, consider staying out of the way as much as possible. You might end your purpose statement with something like this:

Afterward, students can discuss their answers and come up with a plan to strengthen their group's usefulness. In the end, it is up to each student and her or his group to get the most out of peer workshops. When students understand this fact, workshop groups become much more successful overall.

Instructors can successfully implement many different kinds of workshops in their classrooms. And, if one kind of workshop falls flat, you can always change up the plan mid-semester. Here are just a handful of the ways you can bring workshops into your classroom:

Again, the key is to figure out what kind of workshop will work best for your subject matter and with the students you have in the room. Remember that you can and should adapt mid-semester if your workshops aren't working.