The+Writing+and+Reading+Workshop

=The Writing and Reading Workshop =

The writing and reading workshop has a long history of immense success with teachers, students, and parents. Its philosophy and basic principles are simple: students choose their own course of study (with a lot of help from the teacher.) They choose what to write and read, which genre they would like to write and read in, who their intended audience is for writing, and what they should analyze when reading. Too often teachers tell students exactly what to write and in which format they should write, and then there is no real or authentic audience that will actually read the piece other than the teacher for a final grade. Then we assign books as a class, telling every student when to read, exactly how much to read at a time, and what to think of the book when they're finished. The student has invested nothing in these assignments except possibly a desire to get a good grade, or at the very least NOT to get a zero. There is no motivation, and no interest in such assignments. Once the grade comes in, there is no reason to go back to a writing piece to work on it anymore or back to a book to reread for pleasure. It has been shown that most of the time a student won't even read the comments a teacher wrote all over the paper.

The workshop method is different.

In the writing workshop, as in the reading workshop, students are given freedom to choose their topics and study at their own pace. The teacher makes an effort to conference with every student every day, keeping records of what the student is working on and what specific pieces of content have been taught, making sure the student is on track and helping the student improve his or her writing skills and decide the next step in their personal writing process. Each day of the writing workshop starts with a short lesson on a timely topic. All students will not use the information immediately, but the knowledge is there to refer to when the situation does come up. Students will have the bulk of class to spend working on whatever writing project they are involved in at the time, and classes will finish with group sharing. This portion of the class is entirely voluntary, and is intended to be a helping time rather than a showcase.

As students finish a piece of writing, they will publish it in whichever format they have chosen and make a copy for their permanent folders located in the classroom. Another goal is to post at least some of their writing pieces on the "Gallery" page here on this website. The permanent folders will be available for perusing by parents at any time. In this way, parents can also keep up with their student long before grades come out, and help the student to realize his or her personal goals each marking period.

Check out some of these sites for further information:
 * [|Teachers First]**
 * [|Info about Nancie Atwell, a guru of the workshop method]**
 * Nancie Atwell responding to an article about the reading workshop in the NYTimes**
 * [|Barry Lane and some crazy ideas]**