writer’s workshop model lesson teacher's meeting

Writer’s WorkshopLesson

Jennifer Evans

Assistant Director ELA

St.Clair County RESA

Evans.jennifer@sccresa.org

http://www.protopage.com/evans.jennifer#Untitled/Home

Review a Writing

Workshop?

Writing Workshop

Lesson

WriteWell©

Agenda

Writer’s Workshop FormatEverything you need is in WriteWell©

Mini-Lesson(10-15 min.)

Independent Practice with Conferring

(30-40 min.)

Sharing( 5-10 min.)

Connection with

Yesterday’s lesson

Ongoing unit of study

Mentor Text / Student work

An experience

Teaching Point

Explicit Instruction

Model

Create anchor charts

Active Engagement

Try out the new strategy

Watch / Participate in demonstration –

Shared Writing

Plan work out loud

Link

To ongoing work

Practice

1. Mini lesson

To – With – By Model

Modeled Writing

The teacher writes in front of the students demonstrating a writing strategy, skill or convention of written language

Teacher often shares her thinking aloud as she goes through the writing process.

Teaching Point

Teacher & students collaborate to write

text

Shared Writing

Active Engagement

1. Procedural (how to get materials, how to confer, etc.)

2. Writer’s process (strategies writers use and techniques for revising a piece, etc.)

3. Qualities of good writing (information to deepen students’ understanding of literary techniques: scene,

point of view, strong language, leads and endings, etc.)

4. Editing skills (information to develop their understanding of spelling, punctuation, and

grammatical skills)

Types of Mini lessons

New information takes time to sink in, and many teachers now realize that in order to learn something well, students have to use it for a while on their own without the fear of being negatively criticized. That’s why we teach “mini” lessons, so students have the majority of their class time available for applying what they’ve learned to their own work.

2. Independent Practice / Conferring

Linking

Independent Practice with Conferring

30-40 MinutesWhen choosing your teaching point think: “Of all the options I

have, what can I teach that will make the biggest difference for this writer?

Students work independently while the teacher meets with small groups or individual students• Conferring Talking Cards – What are you working on as

a writer?

Possible mid-workshop teaching point

• Occur naturally when the teacher notices something that needs clarification or further explanation to help students as they write

Diagnose Student Needs

From: Writing Workshop The Essential Guide by Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi p. 96

•He knows to include dialogue inside quotation marks

•He uses commas to set off a name in the middle of a sentence

•He knows how to write simple sentences

•He understands that proper names require capital letters

First, notice the skills the student

uses correctly:

What do we notice?

•He knows that proper names need capital letters, but he’s inconsistent in applying this rule.

•He also seems confused when a name stretches across more than one or two words (ie. Pear of Aces is written “Pear of aces”)

•He understands that dialogue needs quotation marks, but he doesn’t understand how to use the comma to identify who is speaking.

•It appears he isn’t aware of paragraphing at all, either in terms of dialogue or as an organizational tool in writing.

Second, think about

what his errors

teach us:

•Since he has partial knowledge of the rules of capitalization, it makes sense to start there. (Show him how you decide which letters need to be capitalized when a name includes a collection of words. You’ll be talking about titles as well since the same rules apply.)

•He is also ready to learn about combining two short sentences. (Show him how he could do this with a number of places in this piece he could apply this skill.)

•Because he shows an understanding of comma use in a sentence, he’s probably ready to expand his knowledge of other ways commas can be used.

Next, select one

or two skills to

teach him when you confer.

What shall it be?

Record Keeping Sample

Guided Writing

Teacher works with a group of students

with similar strengths & needs.

During interactive writing, the teacher and the students may “share the pen.” The class may share ideas and write a piece together. Or, the students and teacher may write back and forth with one another, possibly in journals, on charts or sticky notes.

Sharing5-10 Minutes Notice Question Personal Connection Compliment and Suggestion (glow & grow)

Partner

Small Group

Whole Group

Kelly Gallagher, Author and Teacherhttp://www.kellygallagher.org/index.html

“Assigning writing is

easy. Teaching writing is

really hard.”

“We need to teach our

students to read like writers and

write like readers.”

The most effective strategy to improve writing…

Increase the amount and quality of writing.

Grades 1-5 K staple small unit booklets for their notebook

Specific directions for grades 2-5 in WriteWell

Write everyday

Teacher needs to have their own writer’s notebook and commit

to using it, even if only for a few minutes a day (Use your drafts to share with students to help instruction during minilessons)

Start with Notebooking

Navigating the Website WriteWell©

◦ http://www.sccresa.org/toolsforschools/curriculumtools/writewell/

◦ Select logo

◦ Enter school log in and password:Temporary Log in:Temporary Password:

Show Teachers in Action

www.sccresa.org

This will take you to your grade level page.

K-1 WriteWell© Minilesson Example:

2-5 WriteWell© Minilesson Example:

Commentary With One-on-One Reading/Writing Conference

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2011/04/reading-and-writing-workshop-virtual-tours-each-component

Teacher’s in action: http://sccresa.org/toolsforschools/curriculumtools/writewell/

Lesson / Conference Video

Take time to review the “Teacher Self

Reflection for Writing Workshop”. Discuss

with your team so you all have a common

understanding of each box.

Determine where you are by highlighting

what you consistently do.

Set goals for where you would like to be by

the end of the year.

Plan what you need to do to achieve your

goals and what support you will need with the Action Plan.

Self Reflection

Writing Workshop Look-Fors

Questions?