Anticipation Guide  Use your agree/disagree cards to respond to the following statements: 1. Students write across the curriculum all day long and do not need a separate time for writing. 2. Writer’s Workshop is a time for grading papers and catching up on lesson plans. 3. Writer’s Workshop is not beneficial for gifted students.

Why do I need writer’s workshop? My students write all day long!  Your students are writing across the curriculum. That’s great! However, we need for writing to be the curriculum if we want our students to write well.

Lucy Caulkins says, “Children deserve to be explicitly taught the skills and strategies of effective writing, and the qualities of good writing.” A Guide to The Writing Workshop, Grades 3-5

Writer’s Workshop is the way!  Writer’s workshop is a framework for writing instruction and practice in the classroom. It consists of 4 components: mini-lesson, independent writing, conferring, and sharing.

Write down things you notice in the video?

Possible Schedule  Time: Component:  5 minutes Read aloud (optional)  minutes Mini-lesson  30 minutes Independent Writing & Conferring /*Guided Writing  5-10 minutes Sharing

*Guided Writing?  Guided writing is similar to guided reading, the teacher works with a group based on their needs. This is particularly helpful if a group of students is having difficulty with a concept and you want to avoid repeating the same conference with a number of students.

The WHY of it…  Writer’s workshop focuses on the goal of fostering life long writers.  It gives students the time they need to just write so they can gain experience.

Katie Wood Ray says,  “Writing workshops- where the focus is on writers who use writing to do powerful things in the world in which they live.”

The BENEFITS of it…  During the workshop, the teacher can instruct individual students on any apparent need.  It’s a way for students to progress as quickly or as slowly as they need to, improving different writing skills at each student's individual level.  It enables the gifted students to go deeper, have a wider range of perspective, and write impressive texts, which will encourage them to enjoy writing instead of feeling stifled or bored.

In a GREAT writer’s workshop…  Students are invited to do all the things a writer really does:  research  explore  collect  interview  talk  read  stare off into space  co-author  and yes, pre-write, draft, revise, edit, and publish

For more information…  On page 269 of our class text, there is an appendix that lists books with information about writer’s workshop.