1. The Teaching of Writing
Living inside the art

2. Key Structures of Writing Workshop
Mini lessons
Connection
Teach
Activity
Link
Follow Up
Conferences (RNCTL)
Research (stand back, observe, open-ended question, listen, look at page-refer to it)
Name
Compliment
Teach (explain, demonstrate, get them doing it)
Writers’ workshop is a safe and risk free environment where writers invent and make decisions about material they choose. It is a stretch of time when writers know they have control. It begins with a mini lesson that is purposeful and focused on one thing. It must end so that writing can begin. It is also important to allow students to make decisions about when and where to use these strategies. We use curricular knowledge plus kid noticing when making decisions about what to teach in mini lessons and conferences.

3. Environment & Quality Talk
Pay attention to talk
Value talk in itself
Allow collaborative talk such as pair talking and small group talking
The most productive time for talk is throughout the process as the writing is emerging
The least productive time for talk is after the draft

4. Reading for Craft Respond initially to what the text says to you
Point to a place where you think the writing is good
Describe-don’t label-what the writer is doing
Speculate about what might have been in the writer’s notebook
Speculate on the sorts of revision the writer might have done

5. A Writing Cycle
Collecting in the notebook
Finding a topic
Collecting around topic
Designing the text for audience
Drafting rapidly
Revising
Editing
Publishing to audience
Reflecting/self-assessing
Teaching writers to finish and begin again inside their notebooks-In order for the work throughout this cycle to be meaningful, there must be an audience. Publication is what makes the writing process meaningful. We want to teach students that they haven’t ended the process after they have published and reflected, but rather that they return to their notebooks, always living as writers getting ready for the next project. Although the forms and purposes that a writer takes on may change, the cycle remains the same. Every unit of curriculum in a workshop is not a genre study. Students need to at times to be responsible for their own decisions about the genres in which they write so it is important to allow opportunities for writers to cycle through a non-genre specific study.

6. A Notebook Full of Possibilities
Memories
Overheard conversations
Lists
Questions
Reflections
Analyzing
Noticing things that change
Quotes from our reading life
Research
Capturing thoughts while learning
Venting
Epic plans
Dreams
Thinking about social justices
Realizations
Notebooks are safe places to produce thinking. They help get the writer full of things to say, which can later be crafted, designed, and revised for a specific audience and purpose. They allow the writer a way to find a topic or in some cases, for a topic to find the writer. They provide a space or workbench for testing out possible angles or organization of the parts of a draft not written. For these reasons, the notebook is NOT a place for assignments or teacher prompts. It is a place where writers may make intentional and purposeful decisions about what enters into it.

7. Growing Possibilities into Topics
Listing & Revisiting lists
Rereading
Finding Connections & Themes
Reading around your thoughts
Bouncing ideas around through talk
Once students have ten to fifteen entries and are beginning to get the hang of how to live with a notebook, they can choose one topic and commit to developing it further within their notebook. These are just a few strategies that you might teach to help students grow into a topic. It is our hope that students begin to realize that whatever lies within the notebook is a possibility for more extended writing.

8. Collecting Around a Topic
Memories of the topic in your life
Ideas and thoughts about what’s important about the topic
The history or science of the topic
Objects that would be in a museum
How other people might view the topic
Reflections and feelings about the topic
Concrete facts and information and then reflect
Once a writer had narrowed their attention to one topic, they may spend a few days making entries about that one topic. The writer may look at the topic through various lenses and aspects. Here are a few strategies for gathering entries around a selected topic.

9. Designing for Readers Intended audience Intended purpose
Feeling or mood
Sound or language
Organization of the text
Sequencing for meaning
Visual Elements
Creating a project plan
By now a writer has collected a number of entries around a selected topic, making the topic much more full and rich with thinking. There are now more parts to it and more decisions to be made.

10. Drafts exist outside the notebook
Drafting up a Storm
Drafts exist outside the notebook
Writers do whatever it takes to keep the writing flowing!
Writers choose their own materials and procedures
Drafting is not recopying. The draft may be in a different notebook or on loose leaf paper in a folder. This way the writer may continue living in the notebook. Allow writers to experiment with procedures and tools that work well for getting their ideas nailed down onto the paper. For example, in a draft the writer may skip the hard parts and write the easy parts first or they can say whatever comes to mind even though it may be wrong. Students sometimes resist revision if they have not truly drafted.

11. Revision is Freedom! Support revision work through invitations to try
Teach purposeful revision
Revision can happen early (developing content, arrangement of piece, etc.)
Revision can happen late (attending to meaning and purpose for audience, line by line)

12. Editing the Surface Sharpen attention to the surface
Consider the expectations of the reader
Limit attention to absolute correctness

13. Publication & Reflection
Publication makes the process meaningful
Reflection helps the writer think about their unique process of writing and about how texts work

14. Return to the Notebook
The notebook is always waiting for us to return to it as we live as writers.