Writer's Workshop
Writing Workshop creates a space within the school day when students do what professional writers do-write.
The teacher prepares a mini lesson for the day in which he or she teaches a writing skill or craft and students are encouraged to "try it out" in their own writing. Minilessons are sometimes genre specific, derived from students' needs, and are aspects of writer's craft the teacher wants his or her students to take on and learn about to enhance their writing and add to their repertoire of strategies. The students then write independently and typically conference with their teacher about their on writing. At the end of the Writing Worshop, the class comes back together for a share time.
The teacher prepares a mini lesson for the day in which he or she teaches a writing skill or craft and students are encouraged to "try it out" in their own writing. Minilessons are sometimes genre specific, derived from students' needs, and are aspects of writer's craft the teacher wants his or her students to take on and learn about to enhance their writing and add to their repertoire of strategies. The students then write independently and typically conference with their teacher about their on writing. At the end of the Writing Worshop, the class comes back together for a share time.
The Writing Process
Brainstorming- Planning- Pre Writing
Drafting
Revising
Editing
Final Draft
Publishing
Writing Conferences
Teachers conference individually with students about their writing and discuss skills they could use as a writer. The idea is to add to the young writer's repertoire of strategies- not merely improve a particular piece of writing, but to improve all the writing that student will do. Lucy Caulkins calls this "teaching the writer" and "not the writing".
Genres of Writing
Writing is the communication of content for a purpose to a specific audience. Every piece of writing can be broken down according to its content, purpose, and audience. If you thinkg about these three things every time you write, your pieces will be more successful and as a writer you will alwyas know what you are writing. -Steve Peha: Teaching That Makes Sense, Inc.- www.ttms.org
Most writing that captures our interest shares common characteristics.
Good Writing:
Most writing that captures our interest shares common characteristics.
Good Writing:
- Grabs your attention right at the beginning
- Keeps your attention and makes you want to read and know more
- Makes you smile...makes you have feelings...reminds you of things
- Uses "dollar" words instead of "penny" words- like wonderful, glamorous, whispered, exclaimed
- Paints pictures in your minds; "shows" instead of "tells"
- Flows like talk-easy to read
- Has a beginning, middle, and end
- Has sentences that start with different words and are long and short
- Doesn't have mistakes that get in the way of understanding it (spelling, punctuation, capitals, left-out words, repeated words)
Narrative
Narrative Writing Mini Lessons | |
File Size: | 651 kb |
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Informational
Informational Writing Mini Lessons | |
File Size: | 643 kb |
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Persuasive
Persuasive Writing Mini Lessons | |
File Size: | 1281 kb |
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Response to Literature
Testing as a Genre: 5th Grade State Writing Assessment
Georgia Department of Education
Georgia Department of Education