EARCOS March, 2009 – Session Notes (my thoughts in italics)

• Students learn at different rates – instruction should be differentiated
• Be engaged in authentic work – give them strategies for where writers get their ideas from (key to writers workshop)
• Explicit instruction going on
• Students need a model – do writing in front of them.  You can use mentor text, show them writing (it doesn’t always have to be yours)
• Your goal is to give them strategies to try, and encourage independence and choice
• When you are modeling – don’t give them a perfect model – step by step feel to it, show yourself having a struggle, (students see the action in detail – they see you struggle) try to write things close to what your students are writing. What you are making as a model is as close to what your students are writing.
• Goal of unit-of-study is to have a container that is holding everyone together
• Good writing workshop has a layer of assessment – formal and informal – informs you what you will be doing with your whole class – perhaps the whole class is not getting the concepts that you are introducing. What will you teach more of, less of?
• Possibility of Writers Workshop 3-4 times a week within a balanced literacy programme – in order to fit everything in – not ideal but could still work (perhaps this is how to fit in specific grammar practise – out of 6 day timetable, one day is grammar lesson not writers workshop)
• Workshop Structure:  45 mins: Minilesson (10mins) Worktime (30mins – changes over time, teacher confers while students work, one to one conference, small group work: Mid workshop Teaching point (2-5mins) – take something that you have noticed – manage any little thing back to the whole class. Teaching Share (5-10mins) take time to reflect, work with writing partner, ask questions.  You can stretch the workshop out to an hour if students can stay focused on the writing -the ones that have been writing for a while.
• Mini lessons more than 10mins are maxi-lessons (be clear, concise, planned ahead of time) This is an area that definitely needs to be a focus for me – mini lessons are way tooooo long!!
• Folders and Notebooks – Upper Grades (3-5+) use Writer’s Notebooks and Drafting Folders. Notebooks are for collecting entries.  Writing Folder for the drafting process – write a draft, and revise it.
• Writing Process for Writers Ages 4-7/8:
  • Immersing
  • Rehearsing and Planning
  • Drafting
  • Revising (taking words out, making sentences better)
  • Editing  (fixing mistakes, punctuation, grammar)
  • Publishing (final product – making your final product – want this aspect to go as quickly as possible)
  • Celebrating!! (share the pieces with the class, invite people in, blog? principal, kinderbuddies,writing contest, published authors)
• Writing Process for Writers Ages 8++
  • Immersing
  • Generating (Collecting) Entries (in the writer’s notebook)
  • Choosing a “Seed Entry” (still in the writer’s notebook)
  • Developing and Nurturing
  • Planning and Drafting (see their seed entry differently – don’t copy it – model this) draft on computer – print out Version 1 then make revising changes so that you can track.  Take advantage of spellcheck (that’s what we do).
  • Revising
  • Editing
  • Publishing and Celebrating (ideas: Museum (comment sheet underneath), Group sharing, blogging – authentic audience, Author’s Chair)
• MiniLessons (sense of gathering on the mat area – not at the desks)
  • One, explicit teaching point
  • Student gather at a meeting area
  • Teaching points fit together to create a “Unit of Study”
  • Four parts to the lesson – predictable structure – connection, teaching, active engagement, link – how does this fit in with what we are trying to do, not just another task.
  • Important for kids to see teaching point in action
• Publishing – ok vrs perfect – if it’s taking a long time you need to consider how much of the writing process you are knocking out.  Suggestion from audience – partner/peer editing
  Some units could be teacher-formal editing but not all (Maggie took a post-it and kids had to find the words that she found – don’t write all over their writing – it’s a respect thing.  ELL different ball game for them – they are learning a new language – more time to help them with the editing to help them to learn rather than the focus on the final product – the more you do it for them, the less it becomes their work.  Drawing, then labelling, scaffold works well for ELL students – this is still writer’s workshop (think how can this go for them based on what works for them)
• One to One conferring:  Has a consistent structure (if you have 20 students in your class- across a week you see all of your students at least once – conference times vary but they are not 20 minutes long!!)  Research – talk to student, see what they are doing, watch them; Decide (quick decision – compliment and then Teach) Coach:  Link:
• Writing Centres – tape, pencil sharpener, stapler, scissors, date stamps, paper choice, drafting paper, mentor texts, reference materials – don’t be the gate keeper!
• Writing Partnerships – may or may not be ability based, meeting on a regular basis, to read their work aloud, ask questions/advice of their partners, and to give feedback – this needs to be modelled, taught – watch them, make notes on what they aren’t doing so well in this part and turn it into a minilesson.  The longer you can keep these partnerships together, the better.  At least some span of time – you can change after several unit of studies.
• http://unitsofstudy.com  One way the year of writing could go – it is a RESOURCE – you could follow directly but you don’t have to.  You should make adjustments to fit in for what your students need.
• Units of Study – Grade 4/5  A version of how a year could unfold
  • Launching the Writing Workshop (routines etc)
  • Raising the Quality of Personal Narrative
  • Realistic Fiction
  • Personal Essay
  • Writing Fiction, HF, Fastasy or Mystery Making RW Connections
  • Literary Essays or Fournalism
  • Content Areas Writing, Writing to Convey Ideas and Information
  • Memoir – The Arto f Writing Well
  • Independent Reading Projects / Revision
• Essentials for the success of Writing Workshop:  Don’t wing it – planned ahead of time, waht do you want your students to practise, what do you want your students to create.  Covers the level stands or school benchmarks.  Lasts between 3-6 weeks (typically 4 weeks)  Strikes a blaance between teaching, assessing, teaching assessing
• Maggie did a little small moment mini-lesson – she wrote a story about snorkling with Diane, we then turned and talked about our ideas for our own small moments:
  • Turn and Talk – is the active engagement part (Link – so this is something, where any little story that happened to you and you’re trying to make it sound like it is happening all over again.
  • Dark rain clouds were building up in the sky.  I hope we are not going to be flying through that rain as we walked down the ramp into the waiting airplane.  I put all our luggage in the overhead locker and (I really struggled trying to write like it was happening, I kept wanting to write in the past tense!!)
  • Reverse pyschology – cut off the writing on a high note – don’t fall into the trap of letting writing going if it’s going well.  When something matters to you – when it’s meaningful it’s much more powerful – that’s why you don’t limit the choice.  The big goal is to just let’s all write!  This is not the final product – it’s a collection of entries – one of those will be revised.
  • Have struggling writers “underline” the words they don’t know how to spell.  Writers try their best, sound words out, make sure they are not blocked from writing.
• Maggie will email powerpoint
• Get your own notebook – have to be self-disciplined about it.  Start writing because you will learn what to teach when you go through it.  Make your publication dates public.