On Day 2 it is time to let students see the structure that will be followed for what Writer’s Workshop in the classroom. Writer’s Workshop typically has 3 major parts. This includes the mini lesson, student writing time which often includes conference time, and sharing time. It is important for students to know the parts and purpose of each part of the workshop.
Review Time
I will begin by having students come to the front of the room, just as we did on Day 1. This is a good time to review expectations for how students sit and listen during this time. I will share some insights I learned about the class as a whole from their writing surveys they completed on Day 1.
If you missed Day 1 of this series be sure and go back and take a look at it. There is a link to a free Writing Interest Survey included. Click on the link below to check it out.
Parts of Writer's Workshop
To introduce the parts of writer’s workshop, create a chart like the one below. Most sources on Writer’s Workshop recommend much more time for writing. I am being realistic and know that even finding the time I have alloted here will be difficult. I have chosen this amount of time that I would like to have but these times may need to be adjusted once school begins and schedules for specials, lunch, and pull outs are given.
1. Mini Lesson
The first part of Writer’s Workshop students need to to know about is Mini Lesson time. This is a good time to I explain to students that this will be a short time at the beginning of workshop time during which you will teach writing strategies and skills they need to be good writers. It is also a time that you may read a mentor text to share the type of writing we are working on. And since you are a writer as well, you will at times model and share your own writing with them during this time.
This is also a good time to talk about what their job is during this time so students understand what your expectations are for them. Talk to students about what it should look like and sound like during this time.
Here is a great anchor chart from kindergartensuperkids.com I discovered that shows what this anchor chart might look like.
2. Student Writing Time
Now it is time to explain what students will be doing for most of writing workshop and that is actually writing. Let them know this will be a time that they will be writing independently. It may also be a time that they are editing or adding to writing they have already done. While they are writing you will be conferencing or meeting with individual students to talk about their writing with them. It is also good to remind students that since you will be working with other students they will need to work on their own until you are able to meet with them. Let them know that later we will have a lesson on what to do when you get stuck or need help.
3. Sharing Time
For many students, this is their favorite time. Many students love to share their work with their classmates. Let them know that sometimes a student may share with the whole class and at other times they will be sharing with partners. If you plan to make use of an author chair, this is a good time to to a quick introduction of this.
If you would like to see an example of what this mini lesson may look like, click on the link below to see a great video of a teacher going through the parts of writer’s workshop as she introduces it to her students.
Time to Practice Writing
Now students know the parts of Writer’s Workshop, it is time to let them have some practice writing time. Since this mini-lesson introducing the part of workshop may be longer than an average mini-lesson, writing time will be shorter today. Also, students are going to need to build stamina to get to the 25 minutes of writing time. For that reason, the instructions for their first writing time should be very simple and the time should be shortened to 10 or 15 minutes.
Also, writing folders have not been introduced yet so you may choose to have them just write on notebook paper or writing paper you have printed out just for today. You can take this up to keep as a sample of their first writing of the year in a writing portfolio. I am required to collect baselines on different types of writing so this may be a time that I will assign one of those prompts to begin with.
If you are looking for some simple ideas for this first writing time than check out these ideas below.
Wrap It Up
At the end of writing time it is a good idea to bring students back, just as you would do during regular workshop time for sharing time. Today it may just be discussing how things went during workshop time. What were things they did well? What are some things the class needs to work on improving? You may even have students do some practice of sharing what they wrote about with a partner. The main thing is to go ahead and start getting those routines in place.
Establishing these routines early on will go a long way in helping your writing workshop time run smoother. Next time we will look at introducing writing folders and tools, as well as teaching students what to do when they run into a problem during workshop time.
Until then…
