Chapters 1-5
Until reading these chapters in The Writing Workshop I was not familiar with this form of writing for students. In one of our previous classes we did teacher interviews with current elementary school teachers. My elementary school teacher that I interviewed discussed how she used writing workshops to integrate other subject areas into writing. She did not go into much detail about what the writing workshops were she just pointed out that she used them for integration.
The book made me realize that writing workshops can be very benefical to students because it allows them to write freely on their own and experiment with topics that are appealing to their interests. Allowing students the opportunity to write on their own about a topic that interests them is good for them because it allows them to just write without thinking about it too much. Students sometimes may get too caught up in factual information or trying to research information and turn it into a writing that just does not appeal to them. If they are able to chose the subject/topic to research and write about they are more likely to produce a more meaningful piece of work.
Students are given many opportunities to write throughout the day in many subject areas. Many would think that because of this writing workshops do not play a vital role in the day for the student. To many students writing workshop might be a time for them unwind and just relax. Writing for most people is a way to collect thoughts and gather all of the jumble going on inside ones head. For some students the writing workshop might be when they discover themselves as a writer. For the ones that do not enjoy writing because they are forced to write about topics may like this better because they can free write and not be pushed into writing about something they do not enjoy.
I think that writing workshop is something that i would like to incorporate into my classroom. As a student that was not a big fan of writing I feel like I may have liked it better if I was able to free write about other things that I found more satisfaction in.
Ray, K. (2001). The writing workshop: working through the hard parts (and they’re all hard parts). Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English.
I think you point out many key benefits to a workshop approach, not the least of which is the chance young writers have to discover a love of writing for their own purposes and interests. I like to see how you are re-imagining your classroom as an environment where writing is something to enjoy and look forward to.
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