Writing

Independent Writing/Collecting Entries 35-40 mins

After the mini-lesson, students work in their Writer's Notebook to collect seed entries that may later become published pieces. Students choose one seed entry from their Writing Notebooks to take into draft form once a month. These carefully selected pieces of writing will go through the writing process of editing and revising so that they can be published and shared with others. Students are assigned writing partners to talk and share the editing and revising process. All published pieces of writing are then added to each student's writing portfolio. Some published pieces are made into books!

Conferring

While students are involved in Independent Writing, I use this time to confer with my writers. I take notes during conferences to document students' progress and to plan future mini-lessons. During this time I may:
Listen to students read their entries aloud
Help students decide what they want to say
Provide feedback
Re-teach skills taught during mini lessons
Teach necessary new skills
Reinforce a writer's strengths
Give writers new ways of thinking

Sharing 5-10 mins.

At the end of Writing Workshop everyday, students are brought back together for a 5-10 minute group share and reflection. When students sign up to share or are asked to share, they take a seat in our coveted "Author's Chair." Sometimes a writer might come to the author's chair to ask for help or receive feedback from his or her classmates ("I like my story, but I can't think of a good title."). The author might also want to share part of an entry of which he or she is especially proud.

During many group shares, each student gets a turn to share a small part of an entry, especially if I have asked students to try a particular new skill during the day's mini-lesson.

Other Important Elements

Writers's Notebook

One of our first projects is to decorate our Writer's Notebooks and Portfolio. Students are asked to bring in pictures and other special momentos from home in order to make them their own. These special notebooks become a place for students to grow "seed" ideas and develop their writer's craft. Students practice the skills they learn during the writing workshop mini lessons in their Writer's Notebook. It is the seed idea from these notebooks that students choose one entry each month that they want to publish. After sharing the entries and recieving feedback from members of their writing clubs, students take these entries out of the notebook so that they can be revised and improved. Once a draft has been completed and students have conferenced with me, in the final step of the editing/revising together process, students choose a special themed paper on which to publish the final copy of their story. The writing center is stocked with a variety of decorative paper. The final story then becomes part of the students' writing portfolios.

Writing Clubs

Students are placed into teacher assigned writing clubs with a checklist of questions for the authors to ask of their club members after reading their stories aloud to their group. As the year goes on, students will continue to work with different students in ever-changing writing clubs to share and revise the writing they do in their notebooks. The feedback they recieve in their writing clubs helps them to begin a first draft of the story they are taking out of their Writer's notebook. The drafts are then turned in to me, and I meet with each student to further revise the stories before they are published and added to the students' writing portfolio.

Author Publication Celebration

At the end of the year, students choose their favorite story or a new story to publish in a blank hardcover book. Parents volunteer to type the stories, then the students illustrate and publish the book for all students in the classroom to read!