Writing Workshop

Because I know that frequent writing practice increases the students’ confidence as writers, we spend an hour everyday on writing workshop. The writing workshop has three main components: minilesson, writing groups, and sharing time.

1. Minilesson – During the first 15 minutes of writing workshop, I teach a minilesson to the entire class. Depending on student needs, I may teach a specific writing skill or strategy (such as how to summarize a piece of reading). During this time, I may also read a piece of literature to the students that I think demonstrates a writing concept or genre.
2. Writing groups – The bulk of our writing workshop time is spent in writing groups. During this 30-minute block of time, students work on their writing, talk with peers about revision and editing changes, or conference with me. Each student may be at a different stage in their writing, but all are working on moving to the next step.
3. Sharing time – The last 15 minutes of writing workshop are devoted to sharing. The whole class sits down in the writing corner and listens to each other share selections of their published writing. Students may also share problems they have had with their writing at any stage and ask each other for help.

*How I Track Student Progress* Writing workshop involves a lot independent student work, so I have a few methods for tracking student progress. I keep conference writing record for each student where I monitor student improvement and look for areas that the student needs to work on.