Writing Workshop

My goal this year is to fully implement a writing workshop. The central features include:
• a 10-15 minute mini-lesson about topics, principles, genres, or conventions
• 30 minutes of student writing time
• 1-2 minute conferences with students during writing time to keep them moving forward in their pieces
• 4 days a week (Monday-Thursday)

Our 90-minute LA block breaks down like this:
1. Independent reading (15mins)
2. Poem of the day (15mins)
3. Writing mini-lesson (15mins)
4. Student writing (30mins)
5. Shared reading (15mins)

As you can see, every minute is accounted for with no time allotted for transitions. Therefore, the biggest challenge I'm dealing with now is TIME, or, more precisely, lack of it. In order for this to work, I need to squeeze every second out of every minute. Either that, or something's gotta give!

The first issue is that the poetry piece has been too successful. Students have so much to say about the poems that we’ve consistently gone over 15 minutes. We spend 20-25 minutes talking about some of them. So where has that additional time been taken from? Shared reading.

The second issue is that I talk too much and my mini-lessons run about 20-25 minutes. Where do I make up the time? Shared reading.

You see the pattern. Shared reading has gotten the short end of the LA stick. After NECAP, I’m going to start using a kitchen timer to keep myself on track. When the timer goes off, poem-of-the-day time is over. Even if it means cutting off a student mid-comment ☺

Perhaps my biggest challenge has been getting to every student at least every other day during their writing time. Beginning sixth graders are still so needy. They ask, "Does this sound okay?" and don't have the confidence to move forward in pieces without input. I sit down with a student and 5 minutes later I'm still there with the same kid. I know I have to sit, ask how things are going, give a suggestion to move him forward, and go on to the next student. This is going to be a huge shift for me, because I have much to say about student writing. I could easily spend 30 minutes with one student on one piece, but that's not fair to the other 17 students.

The good news is that I’m enjoying the Language Arts block even more than I did last year. I’m learning to appreciate all that poetry has to offer, and I’m energized by students’ enthusiasm for the selections we’ve shared. I’d hate to see this fall by the wayside, but I know I have to limit students’ responses to keep this chunk at the 15-minute mark. I know the workshop will pick up momentum as students get used to the procedure and learn how to become the first responders to their own writing. 15 minutes will be tough when it comes to shared reading, but one possible solution is to invest in more book copies so students can do the reading at home (Although that brings up a whole new set of issues, like what to do when a student doesn’t read at home).

There are a lot of kinks to work out, but reflecting on the first month of school, I’m pleased with the direction my students and I are moving.