writer’s workshop model lesson teacher's meeting
TRANSCRIPT
Writer’s WorkshopLesson
Jennifer Evans
Assistant Director ELA
St.Clair County RESA
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
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?