Good Morning Writers!

Before I start discussing the chapters for this week I want to first express how thrilled I am at how phenomenal my school placement is.  I'm in a first grade class at J.J. Harris Elementary and I couldn't be happier about what I'm learning and will learn in this classroom.  Writing is a huge part of everyday.  The students arrive at school and immediately get out their personal journals and start writing.  One child in particular ALWAYS writes about mohawks.  "Mohawks are big.  Mohawks are little.  Mohawks are sweet.  Mohawks are cool" etc. "Mohawks" even made the word wall! 

The teacher announces, "Good morning writers!" She calls them to the carpet and writer's workshop begins...focus lesson, 30 minutes of writing, and finally sharing, following our textbook procedures to a tee.  They write in their journals whenever there's down time throughout the day and also have home journals where they write to their parents about what they're learning once a week and parents respond.  I'm sure I'll have more stories from the classroom, and I'm going to start taking pictures to share as well.

Now, The Writing Workshop...I loved how Ray suggested teachers evaluate their workshop environment: "If I locked my students in my classroom and stood outside the door, what could they learn about writing without me even being in there?" What resources do you have available to students and how do they interact with their environment while writing?  The students in my class aren't necessarily researching yet, although a few refer to children's books in the class. However, one thing I love is that they have "good fit spots" in the classroom where they go to write.

  

Here are some other environment enhancing tips that I really enjoyed:

*student-designed bulletin board for sharing writing

*copies of writing with writing advice attached from past students or for future students

*quotations from writers throughout the room

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.  ~Mark Twain

I also liked the idea that writers are engaged in "prewriting" all the time - watching listening, studying, and gathering information from the world.  This is a writer's homework, or as Ray coined it, worldwork.  If one aims to be a great writer, he has to live a "writerly life," constantly searching for material to use in writing.  Students keep this worldwork in their writer's notebook, which should be consistently evaluated by the teacher.

My biggest concern as a future teacher of writing workshop is proving to students that I, as the teacher, am a writer. At this point, I don't see myself as one...it's not a habit of mine to write on any consistent basis.  However, it seems like a very important facet of creating a successful writing workshop.

For a teacher to love teaching writing, she must love the learning journey.   

    

In Class...

Today in class we were asked to make a concrete poem about what a writing workshop is and is not. Here's what we came up with!

The pencil is what writing workshop IS NOT and the rest is what it SHOULD BE

This a great book of concrete poems:

We also started to work on our own narratives.  What is a narrative, you might ask?

What does a narrative entail?

• Characters
• Dialogue
• Plot/storyline
• Descriptive language
• Conflict (problem) and resolution
•  Can be conversational or formal
• Chronology/order
• Attention to emotion
• Setting

Maybe I'll let you in on the topic of my narrative later.  For now, it's still in the works!

A good narrative to read to your class or use for a focus lesson:

Writing as Curriculum

"Writing is something you do, not something you know."

Is it possible to call yourself a writer if it's not your profession? A reader, yes, but a writer? Is writer a term reserved only for those who pursue it as a profession, or anybody who spends time and enjoys writing?  Katie Wood Ray in Writing Workshop asserts that seeing the label writer only narrowly referring to professionals limits those (like me) who hope to become future teachers of writing.  You learn dance from dancers, piano from pianists, and cooking from cooks, so shouldn't writing be learned from those who are considered writers? They would be the most qualified, it seems. It is first important for teachers to develop an identity as writers themselves before asking and expecting students to assume the same identity in the classroom.

"The writing workshop is a lot like lunchtime."

This quotation from chapter five of The Writing Workshop cleared up many problems I've seen occur in other writing workshop-like settings I've observed in several classrooms.  Some students "finish" their writing piece in ten minutes while other students never turn in any completed work.  Students finish up at all different times within the assigned period and ask, "What do I do now?" repeatedly.  This, of course, disrupts students who are still trying to work.  By viewing writing workshop as bounded by time rather then a set of directed activities, much like lunch, students know the options for how to fill this time, and the same method is followed day after day.  Lunch cannot be cut out of the schedule; it happens everyday at the same time for the same length of time; students know where they sit, how to get their food, how to eat their food, how to spend their time after eating, and how to dispose of their plate. Daily, non-optional writing experience where students are familiar with the rules and rituals allows students lots of experience actually writing.  The desired outcome of everyday's writing period is the same.  

When students write, they become writers and grow as writers.  

It's as simple as that.