Sarah Mickelberry

Dr. Trupe
ENG 315
9 May 2014
Final Essay 1: The Writing Workshop
Writing Workshop is an integral part of how students learn to write. Why is writing even
important to teach in school. Writing is an everyday occurrence. Student will use it to
communicate with people, use it in the academic world, use it as a way to express themselves,
and finally use it in the professional world. With all these different genres of writing students
will encounter in their lives the best way to actively and effectively teach writing is through a
writing workshop. The workshop form allows students to work collaboratively with other
students and the teacher to grow as writers. Although a writing workshop can be organized in
many different ways in the classroom depending on the grade of the students, writing abilities,
and teacher preference, there are a few essential elements that every writing workshop must
include if the overall experience is going to be one of learning and a fostering of student
enjoyment of writing.
Even though writing workshop is going to look different in each and every classroom, in
action, some factors should look the same across all writing workshops. So, what does writing
workshop look like in action? Like Regie Routman says in his article Writing Essentials: Raising
Expectations and Results While Simplifying Teaching, writing must happen every day or students will not
see writing as being important. Also, Fletcher and Portalupi make the point in their chapter that the
writing workshop should occur at the same time every day and student should have a choice in
what they are writing. Students need to get into the routine of writing and come to expect this. If
it is at the same time every day students can get their mind into writing before the workshop even
begins. In action, writing workshop needs to provide a variety of purposes for writing. If students
are going to become well rounded writers, then a writing workshop that only focuses on
academic writing will not help students at all. Finally, writing workshop should include a mix of
the teacher modeling, thinking aloud, sharing, and collaboratively writing with students, in
addition to the students writing and sharing. All these different techniques are what the writing
workshop looks like in action, but there are a few essential pieces to writing workshop that must
be present to make the writing workshop as a whole effective.
Writing circles is one essential piece of writing workshop that makes the overall
experience effective. Writing circles allows the sharing of writing to become a part of writing
workshop. It gives students an audience to write for. As Jim Vopat says in his article
Establishing Writing Circles when kids listen to one anothers writing about the same topic,
they all learn something about language, voice and audience (Vopat 12). Writing circles also
allows the students to get immediate feedback, which is so important in the writing process. As
Jim Vopat states in Establishing Writing Circles, writing circle feedback is done in a positive
light that allows student to celebrate their writing, rather than fear it. The low risk environment
of writing circles allows student to have fun with writing and come to enjoy it. Sometimes the
teacher is too busy to get to all the students in one day, but with writing circles this problem is
solved. Writing circles also allows students to have a choice in their writing. Regie Routman
says that if students dont have a choice then there is boredom in their wiring and that results in
formulaic writing, which can be hard to break through. Writing circles allows students to break
away from the formulaic writing that often come about in school. Students are able to choose the
topic they want to write on, the kind of feedback they receive, and the genre they want to write
in. Since they are able to have that choice, students come to enjoy writing for their peers.
The second essential part of writing workshop is one-on-one conferences with the
teacher. This can be done as the rest of the class takes part in writing time, because of course
writing time is one of the main reasons to have a writing workshop in the first place. Conferences
are so important because it allows students to share their thought and get feedback from the
teacher. In return, teachers offer their students ideas during this time, while also easily seeing
what each of their students are struggling with. If students are having a real problem with a
concept of writing this can be easily cleared up in a one on one conference with the teacher.
Nancie Atwell showed us in her student conferencing video that the teacher is there to make
suggestions and not tell the student how to write. As teachers it is important not to point out all
the negative in a student conference because this will discourage the student. Encouraging the
writer makes them enjoy writing, whereas if you focus on the negative they learn to hate writing.
A final important part of the writing workshop is mini-lessons. Mini-lessons are short,
focused lessons that are meant to introduce students to an important topic. They are the most
traditional piece of writing workshop because it involves the teacher actually teaching. Mini-
lessons are essential because they help students to broaden their understanding of different
writing techniques and strategies. For example, in a mini-lesson the teacher could introduce
Berry Lanes exploding the moment or snapshop concept. Mini-lessons also are the time to
provide students different skills from the writing process such as editing, revising, or pre-writing.
Without mini-lessons the relay of important knowledge and skills would not exist. Finally, as
Megan Sloan writes in her book, mini-lessons allow teachers to demonstrate with own writing or
student writing, use interactive writing, use picture and chapter book to keep students engaged
and share what you admire. Mini-lessons really allow the whole class to come together as a
writing community.
In conclusion, the writing workshop can take on many different shapes. In the end,
however, mini-lessons, writing circles, and one-on-one conferences while the students have their
writing time are essential to the writing workshop as a whole.