Chapters 6 and 11

The Writing Workshop

Chapters 6 and 11

2/8/11

Chapter 6 gave a lot of great examples of topics and ideas that students can write about during writers workshop.  I liked reading all of the ideas because the majority of them were new ideas to me. I liked the writing exercises on page 65, “write for ten minutes without stopping.. fill in the phrases, “I remember..”; or having “walking daydreams” where she writes in first person, present tense “I am..” about something she dreams of being.” I also liked that the authors pointed out that if a student is staring off in space, it doesn’t mean that they are not focused.  The student could just be thinking about what to write. Teachers are so quick to think that students are not paying attention. I know I have already told multiple students to focus quietly while walking around the room. 

I also liked the idea of keeping a notebook and writing in it whenever possible. They gave examples of things that a student might try in their notebook. Some of the ideas I liked where: “quotations from music, movies, books, magazines, and so on that interest you; writing about photographs or pictures that interest you; and family stories you know orally.”

A passage I liked was ‘In the writing workshop, we don’t teach students what to write. We teach them how to write. If the content of our lessons isn’t big enough to serve students across many, many different writing topics, then it’s not good writing curriculum” (127, WW). This is a good passage for teachers to refer back to from time to time because it reminds us of the real point of writing workshop.