Having just finished reading Crafting Writers by Elizabeth Hale, I feel as though I no longer need to worry about not being able to teach a successful writer's workshop. The last school I worked in had writer's workshop and reading about it the past couple of weeks has been fun. I knew the basics of the program but I wasn't sure the reasoning behind it all. I was never in the classrooms when the children were writing or conferring with the teacher. I wish I had been now! It would be interesting to actually see the conferences in action. Reading about them is one thing but being able to see a few would be great!
Although I didn't work in the general education classrooms during writer's workshop, I did work with a lot of children one on one with their writing and I wish I had known about Elizabeth Hale's book then. I feel as though I would have been able to help the students so much more than I did. I am just happy to have read about her ideas and classroom suggestions before I enter my first teaching position. This book is a keeper!!
The school I "aided" at the past two years didn't really emphasize writer's workshop and conferencing in grades 3-6. This year, they had to make schedule adjustments by incorporating writer's workshop and methods similar to Hale. I'm glad this is an assigned reading because this tends to be the trend in our community's schools now.
ReplyDeleteTina, I agree that there would be a lot of value in actually being able to observe a conference in action! Perhpas, our cooperating teachers for field experience will utilize writer's workshop...
ReplyDeleteYeah for finishing! Of all the things we're doing in our classes right now, writing workshops excite me the most. I am not super-interested in teaching kindergarten/1st grade because I'd rather work with kids who are more confident readers/writers and can be shown literature they'll enjoy. I see writer's workshops as a great entry-point for that -- saying, "here's a writer who writes kind of like you" or "I think you might want to try some things this writer is doing." Fun.
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