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What Is a Writing Workshop?
What Is a Writing Workshop?
A writing workshop in the classroom setting is typically where students get tailored feedback on their writing. This can be done in real time or after the fact. Sometimes, specific writing lessons accompany the writing workshop and the feedback is tailored to just those skills, or it can be a general workshop, where the entire writing piece is looked at. Now, this seems hard to put into practice, but with proper classroom management and the help of some automatic, labelled timers (link here), it's a cinch!
Why Incorporate a Writing Workshop?
Why Incorporate a Writing Workshop?
It is so difficult to find time to spend individually with students; either to help them with their work, or to get to know them better. Using a writing workshop lets you do both! But there are some caveats. First, students need to be actually working on their writing pieces while you're working individually with others. Second, fast finishers need something productive to do that does not create extra work for them, but instead extends the application of their skills. Third, other teachers who come into your room need to be helping with the workshop, too!
But how does this all happen?
First, my expectations for my classroom is that it's silent during writing workshop. My mentality is, if you're talking during writing time, you're not working. Now, for students that need to talk aloud to write, there is always an extra free desk by my teacher table where I can keep an eye on them and not confuse their talking for anyone else's. Personally, the first time I catch a student talking to a neighbor, they have to come sit at my table and work. To practice getting used to writing silently, I roam the room while they write other writing pieces and enforce expectations. We start at smaller intervals at the beginning of the year, then gradually increase.
Second, I like to incorporate the fast finishers as extra writing helpers. Of course, I would have a rubric for them to reference and the counsel to, "not change their writing into your writing." This solidifies students' skills in whatever we're learning because they're now evaluating and analyzing for the skill (which is the 2nd and 3rd highest levels in Bloom's Taxonomy)! Students receive a timer (you can get 1 or 2 at the $1.25 Tree if you don't have any) and are told a time frame of either 6, 7, or 8 minutes (preferably the same interval as what you're using). They also receive a list of student numbers (1-30) and are told to start on a number further down the list than what you, the teacher, are starting on. That way, you don't overlap! They must find a quiet, visible spot in the room, and talk in quiet voices when in their workshops, so that it doesn't interrupt or distract from your own.
Of course, if a fast finisher isn't comfortable acting as a writing helper, there are other things they can do in your classroom, but I've found that almost all of my fast finisher students through the years want to act in that way. I also don't offer opting out of being a writing helper as an option, but if they come to me and say they're really not comfortable, I find a different job for them.
Third, I would either give the SPED or ESL teacher a copy of the Writing Workshop timers or have them use their own timer on the same interval as me, but they would work only with the students in their caseload. This makes sure I see the students in their caseload as well as them, so we both know how they're doing with the skills being addressed. I like to call this "double-dipping." 😁
I love Writing Workshop, and I think you will too. Just give it a try! Here's the link to the free resource that I use in my own classroom (link here). I feel like it's so much more effective and beneficial than wandering the room and giving feedback there. The resource is a PDF with Google Slides links that will force you to make a copy. When in present-mode, the timers should start automatically and sound off automatically. When you click next, the same should happen! My recommendation is to immediately move to the next slide once the timer rings; I would sometimes forget to move the slide, start talking to the next student, and the the rest of them would go, "TEACHER!" So, they'll keep you honest, don't worry.
If you can't access the Google Slides for whatever reason, open the links using your personal email, then share it to your work email! That should do the trick.
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