Writer's Workshop

November 12, 2010

Workshop rules posted on the bulletin board

Today I taught my first writing lesson.  My teacher does use Writer's Workshop every day, but doesn't necessarily teach a mini-lesson every day.  Over half of the students have some type of disability, ranging from learning disabilities to Autism.  The teacher says she can spend up to four days having children complete a five sentence story.  I was able to introduce them to something new today.  My lesson was "Writing Words in a Snap."  The primary focus was to teach children to use the word wall (or in their case, their sight word lists) to write sight words.  So many of the students spend several minutes sounding out words as simple as "to" and "me."  My teacher wanted me to emphasize that they can use their sight word lists to help them write these more simple words.  That was what my mini-lesson was focused around.  My teacher has the students turn to a partner and tell them what they are going to write about.  The students were then given 30 minutes to write.  During this time, I was able to conference with two different students.  One of the students was stuck and didn't know what to write about.  I helped by prompting them with questions about their interests, family, etc.  During the other students' conference, I noticed that he wasn't spacing his words properly.  I took that time teach him about spacing.  To close the lesson, the class all gathered on the carpet and I allowed a few of them to share their work.


One of the main things we have discussed throughout this course is Writer's Workshop.  We have talked about how important it is to give students freedom when they write.  The students were able to write about anything they wanted to, which posed a struggle for some students.  I included all of the components of Writer's Workshop in my lesson.  I taught a brief mini-lesson, which focused on a strategy to help the students make their writing easier and more effective.  We talked about how conferences within writing workshop were the most effective part of the workshop.  I started each conference by asking how the students' writing was going, and then focused on one thing the student needed to work on. 


I was really satisfied with how well the lesson went.  When I was in elementary school, writing was so stressful and we didn't have a Writer's Workshop period.  I was really able to see first hand how important every element of Writer's Workshop is.  From the mini-lesson all the way to the closing share time.  I could tell that the students really found the mini-lesson helpful.  It seemed as if the students knew they had access to their sight word lists, but they never really knew how to use them as a resource.  I wish I would have had the time to conference with more students.  Not all of the students finished their stories.  The teacher said she was going to allow them a few days to complete them.  I really liked being able to see how effective Writer's Workshop is, and teaching lessons like today's will really benefit me in the future.