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Writing Workshop: Potential and Possibilities for Cultivating Purpose, Power, and Passion

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00February 6th, 2019|Classroom Teaching, General, General Education, Reading Recovery Teaching, Reflections and Commentary, Teaching|

by Wendy Sheets

Writing Workshop is a context that has the potential to help students develop as writers within a literate community. As students learn to live as writers, building a repertoire of tools and strategies, teachers have a role in cultivating purpose, power, and passion in meaningful ways. All three are necessary and impactful elements of an exceptional, gratifying Writing Workshop.

Purpose
First, as teachers, we must consider the purpose of the workshop. Let’s face it: Our hope is for students to become increasingly better writers who create thoughtful, interesting, well-crafted pieces of writing, and who love doing it. Our purpose, then, is to provide daily, momentum-building opportunities for writers to experience something new so they may extend their repertoire of generative tools related to craft and conventions.

For our writers, their work only becomes relevant when there is a purpose for writing. Writing provides an outlet for writers to share thinking that is meaningful to them in some way. Purpose increases the level of investment. Therefore, writers need to have freedom and flexibility, along with guidance, to make choices about their topics, the genre and structure that best communicates their message, their audience, the research necessary to plan for their writing, the details they include, the paper, graphics, text features, font, and decision to publish. If a goal is for students to become lifelong writers, their writing should fit them personally, with ties to their own lives, experiences, and interests. As members of a writerly community, students learn about one another and more readily share what is personally meaningful as well. Within this context, writers engage with purpose each day as they work on creating that which is meaningful to them.

Power
Within the Writing Workshop, students gain power as their writing process is strengthened. This happens through experiences that include daily writing minilessons, independent writing and the use of a writer’s notebook, writing conferences, and share time.

Daily, whole-group writing minilessons provide explicit strategies for writers to extend their understanding about craft and conventions. Craft minilessons may be related to organization, idea development, language use, word choice, and voice, and all serve in making writing better and more captivating. Conventions minilessons may include any aspect of writing mechanics and grammar, allowing for writing to be understood and appreciated by an audience. Mentor texts enable authentic, meaningful demonstrations of craft and conventions. As writers take on new learning about craft and conventions, they add to their repertoire of possibilities to potentially try out with every piece of writing. Check out some examples I share in chapter 18 of the text Responsive Literacy (Sheets, 2018).

When writers plant seeds within their writer’s notebooks or apply new learning from minilessons to their own pieces of writing, they gain power and agency in constructing their work. Writing conferences support the thinking of each writer as instruction is differentiated during a writer-to-writer conversation. With opportunities to provide feedback, teach something new, coach as the writer gives it a go, and make explicit links to ways the writer may apply the learning to independent work, the instructional possibilities are endless. While writers gain power as their teacher comes alongside them to lift their thinking about one focus at a time, conferences offer additional benefits. According to Carl Anderson (2018), ““The relationships that grow out of writing conferences are not the by-product of conferring – they are one of the important goals, since these relationships are so central to students’ growth as writers” (p. 10). As students gain power as learners and also find meaning in discussing their work with you, their teacher, they are positioned as writers who have agency in making important decisions. The share time at the end of the workshop offers another opportunity for writers to share their work, learn from others, and for you to glean important insights that further inform your instructional decisions.

Passion
When writers engage with purpose and continue to develop in powerful ways, they often find themselves passionate about their work. Writing should be a joyful occasion. When it is viewed as drudgery or simply a school task that must be completed for the teacher, it is difficult for students to feel invested. I find that the reciprocal nature of reading and writing is important to tap into for many reasons, including building passion. When sharing and discussing a variety of high quality texts during Interactive Read-Aloud or Guided Reading, learners begin to engage differently. As they think deeply about texts – literally, inferentially, and critically – they may read with the eye of a writer. For instance, if I appreciate the way Ralph Fletcher uses the craft of metaphor in Twilight Comes Twice, I can try it out in my own writing. That’s exciting!

Passion develops when writers have choice, share the stories that are meaningful to them, and explore options for improving the craft of their writing. All of this is in service of communicating their message to their audience with purpose and power. Remember that hope I mentioned earlier in this article? Writing Workshop as a time and space where purpose, power, and passion are cultivated does offer the potential for students to become increasingly better writers who create thoughtful, interesting, well-crafted pieces of writing, and who love doing it. It’s up to us to cultivate – fertilize, plant, sow, grow, develop, and foster – that purpose, power, and passion. Think of the possibilities you’ll reap!

Anderson, C. (2018). A Teacher’s Guide to Writing Conferences: Classroom Essentials. Heinemann: Cambridge, MA.

Fletcher, R. (1997). Twilight Comes Twice. Clarion Books.

Sheets, W. (2018). Writing workshop for grades 3-6. In P. L. Scharer (Ed.), Responsive literacy: A comprehensive framework (pp. 262-280). New York: Scholastic.


Wendy Sheets is an Intermediate & Middle Level University Trainer with Literacy Collaborative at The Ohio State University.  She will present two sessions during the upcoming 2019 National Reading Recovery & K-6 Literacy Conference in Columbus, OH: Coaching Around the Reading Process on Sunday at 1:30 pm and Literate Identities: The Power of Classroom Interactions on Monday at 3:00 pm

Who Owns the Learning? The Importance of Adopting a Facilitative Stance

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00January 22nd, 2019|Classroom Teaching, General, General Education, Reading Recovery Teaching, Reflections and Commentary, Teaching|

by Maria Nichols

Henry: No!! They gotta go the other way!

Ella: To the waves!

Teacher: Angel? You have that look …

Angel: [nodding] Yeah – I’m trying to – like, why do they go all wrong?

Sara: Yeah – they get all confused. It’s really, really sad.

Angel: But – like, why?

Teacher: What are you all thinking?

Marceline: It said the lights – I think they’re all glowy. Sorta like stars or something.

Josue: Oh – maybe …

This bit of talk comes from a class of second graders engaged with Philippe Cousteau’s Follow the Moon Home: A Tale of One Idea, Twenty Kids, and a Hundred Sea Turtles. The children were wrestling with the perils that await the newly hatched turtles, including confusion caused by the lights of beachfront homes. Their talk is understandably tentative as they construct, and their teacher’s actively leaning in, watching, listening, and nudging.

Brian Cambourne speaks to the critical nature of engaging children in thinking and talking together in this very way, reminding us that “… learning, thinking, knowing, and understanding are significantly enhanced when one is provided with opportunities for ‘talking one’s way to meaning’…” (1995). This process actually shifts children from passively, compliantly absorbing the teacher’s thinking to actively constructing ideas that are bigger and bolder than possible inside a single mind alone.  And, when children construct in this way, they truly own the learning.

In Comprehension Through Conversation (Nichols, 2006), I explored specific talk behaviors – drawing in a range of voices, growing ideas and negotiating meaning – that are foundational to engaging children through talk. But, there’s another critical piece to the process—one that involves a deliberate shift in our own instructional stance.

In the bit of talk about Follow the Moon Home, you may have noticed that the teacher’s interjections were brief, yet powerful. She’s not leading the talk – she’s facilitating the talk. A facilitative stance differs from traditional, teacher-driven instruction in that it doesn’t funnel children’s thinking or attempt to corral their process. Rather, facilitation opens space for children to engage in an honest flow of talk and meaning making.

Thoughtful facilitation has four overarching qualities (Nichols, 2019):

Facilitation Is Invitational
Our facilitation should invite all children’s voices into the meaning making process. We hear an invitation from our 2nd grade teacher when she uses the signs of thinking on Angel’s face to draw him into the conversation, and when she creates space for others to respond to his question. Invitational facilitative moves may sound like this:

  • What are you thinking?
  • Is anyone wondering ___?
  • I’m noticing a look on your face …

Facilitation Is Responsive
As we facilitate, we listen intently to the flow of children’s talk, alert for constructive possibilities. We may nudge specific lines of thinking to deepen and broaden them, or we may nudge towards new lines of thinking – but always in ways that honor the children’s process. Notice that our teacher responds to Angel’s question and Sara’s thinking, nudging for thoughts about their noticing and wondering as opposed to layering in her own predetermined questions. Responsive facilitation may sound like this:

  • That’s interesting. Why do you think … ?
  • Can you say a little more about that?
  • What do others think about this? 

Facilitation Is Agentive
Our facilitative language speaks to relationships in the meaning making process, and lays bare our beliefs about children’s capabilities. Language such as, “Now, who can tell me…?” positions us as central to the process, while language such as, “What are you all thinking?” positions children as capable thinkers and collaborators who are central to the process. Agentive facilitation may sound like this:

  • What are you thinking?
  • Have you considered…?
  • How is that thought settling with you?

Facilitation Is Meaning Driven
To support children as they construct understanding together, we attend to the ebb and flow of meaning making, tailoring our facilitation to their needs. We lightly support when meaning is flowing and nudge a bit more if it’s faltering. We might refocus children on a confusing part of the text, encourage them to notice more in a particular passage, or support them as they connect bits of thinking— but always remembering that the meaning needs to be their own. Our teacher’s move to position Angel’s question as a springboard for the children’s thinking communicates exactly this. Meaning-driven facilitation may sound like this:

  • Does this thinking seem to make sense…?
  • Let’s reread a bit, and see if …
  • How do these thoughts fit together …?

When facilitative support is invitational, responsive, agentive, and meaning centered, children come to realize the power and potential of their voice—both individually and collectively. In these classrooms, children truly own their learning.

 

References
Cambourne, B. (1995). Toward an educationally relevant theory of literacy learning: Twenty years of inquiry. The Reading Teacher, 49(3),182-190.
Costeau, P. (2016). Follow the moon home: A tale of one idea, twenty kids, and a hundred sea turtles. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
Nichols, M. (2006). Comprehension through conversation. Portsmouth, NH:   Heinemann.
Nichols, M.  (2019). Building bigger ideas: A process for teaching purposeful talk. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

 

Maria Nichols is a literacy consultant and Director of School Innovation for the San Diego Unified School District. She is the author of Comprehension Through Conversation. Maria will be a featured speaker at the 2019 National Reading Recovery & K-6 Literacy Conference, February 9-12, in Columbus, OH. Her session entitled “Talk Matters! Supporting English Learners in the Dialogic Classroom”  will be presented on Sunday 3:30-5:00 pm and Tuesday 8:30-10:00 am

Do It All and Do It Now

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00January 8th, 2019|Classroom Teaching, General, General Education, Reading Recovery Teaching, Reflections and Commentary, Teaching|

by LeeAnn Lewellen

As an instructional coach, I hear so many “buzzwords” when administrators and district personnel discuss teacher effectiveness after a brief classroom observation. Engagement, rigor, cultural responsiveness, high yield strategies, assessment… the list goes on. But as a teacher, how do I attack ALL of these things right now?! I feel the sense of urgency to improve in all areas right away, or I will witness the failure of the students and the demise of the education system. How can I attack ALL of these things right now? The answer – I can’t. It brings to mind the leader of the Roman Empire, Augustus, and his phrase, “Festina Lente…” – make haste, or go slow, to go fast.

What if, instead of fixing every little thing that needs attention in the classroom, I choose one area to improve?  Just one. What one thing could I change about my teaching to improve student learning? Isn’t that what I would do to help grow my students? As a Reading Recovery teacher, when I hear a struggling reader read a text, I make a mental note of all the problems I hear and see. In one reading, I might notice visual errors, lapses in meaning, incorrect structures, and more. But if I try to address ALL of those things, I will have confused my reader! I think about what will move the child forward in his or her processing, and I pick one thing to address.  As a teacher, I need to afford the same opportunity for learning to myself.

So that is what I will do. I will think of one way to improve my craft that could make a positive, lasting impact on my students. Does the day seem long and monotonous to me? Then I need to improve my engagement strategies! Could nearly every student finish every activity with 100% accuracy before I even began instruction? Then I need to improve the rigor of the activities. (or move on to a new topic!)

I will cease the practice of rushing through everything without mastering anything; I will go slow to go fast. I will develop a proper balance between urgency and diligence; I will go slow to go fast.

Join me, colleagues. Choose a path, work hard to improve, take a little at a time, and watch you AND your students flourish.

LeeAnn has 17 years of experience in the field of education. She is a Reading Recovery teacher and an instructional coach for her building. LeeAnn, along with Shawna Wilkins and Kelsey Wharton will present a session during the 2019 National Reading Recovery & K-6 Literacy Conference entitled “Deconstructing the Data: What Your Readers Need Now”.

Tell Me a Story

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00December 19th, 2018|Teaching|

by Connie Dierking

This time of year I am reminded of my grandmother’s large oval dining room table. I see my sisters, brother, mom and dad seated at this table, grandma and grandpa at each end. I can still smell the turkey, homemade noodles and pumpkin pie. I feel the warmth of the oven that has been working overtime. I see the cornucopia salt and pepper shakers tucked between the platters. But mostly … I hear the stories. My family sat at the table for hours retelling the stories of my people. As a child, I grew restless hearing the same stories over and over but I stayed at the table and I listened and I learned. I learned of my parent’s courtship, my dad’s first car, my grandmother’s broken arm, and more embarrassing stories of my childhood than I wanted to hear. I learned the meaning of story. I know now, as a parent and a teacher, that I was one of the lucky ones. My life was couched in story. These were the stories that shaped me then and continue to shape me years later.

The Atlantic Monthly writer, Elaine Reese wrote in her article, What Kids Learn From Hearing Family Stories, “Family stories can be told nearly anywhere. They cost us only our time, our memories, our creativity. They can inspire us, protect us, and bind us to others. So be generous with your stories, and be generous in your stories. Remember that your children may have them for a lifetime.”

School can be a wonderful place to support and develop the oral language skills necessary for telling a story, whether children come into our classrooms having had rich family storytelling and literacy experiences or not. In Teaching for Deep Comprehension (2005), Linda Dorn and Carla Soffos note:  “Children involved in talk that included retelling an event using language that includes setting, characters, events, and an ending is an important precursor to comprehension. This is quite simply a story. The potential of storytelling through narrative discourse will assist with growing comprehension skills.”

While we can’t sit at the family tables of each student in our classrooms to hear and retell each individual story, we can help our young readers and writers find, hear, and tell the stories of their school lives. We can turn the events of a school day — a lizard on the bookshelf, a water fountain that shoots in the air, an art project, a field trip, or simply the tiny moments that happen any day, at school — into a story.

Finding a shared classroom experience provides the impetus for a class story. Composing that experience in the form of a story that includes a beginning, middle and end, story language, and sentence variety becomes an oral text. When the story is told and retold together, as a class of storytellers,  it becomes a tool for practicing the foundation for literacy — oral language. Symbols and gestures support the retelling as students gain fluency and confidence in orally sharing their class story. When Dr. Marie Clay gave her acceptance speech for the National Reading Conference Distinguished Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award, she stated, “I do not study history. I am history.” Our students can become fluent storytellers of their own history. Their oral stories will continue to serve as a text for practicing speaking and listening, reading and writing. A shared story can build a community, provide a structure for telling your own story, and prove that any event can be told in the form of a story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Example of an oral story on a simple event that happened one day in first grade:

Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles! Today we became…bubble scientists!  We each took a bubble wand and blew and blew.  Big bubbles, small bubbles, matter of fact all kinds of bubbles filled the air. They looked like iridescent spheres floating through the atmosphere. We studied the bubbles, laughed at the bubbles, and tried not to touch the bubbles. Floating, floating, floating until all of a sudden . . . POP! They disappeared as fast as lightning. Our teacher exclaimed, “I wonder what it would be like to float inside a bubble?”.  So we pretended that we could. I guess we will never know for sure. Studying bubbles might be a fun job to have someday. Studying bubbles was buckets of fun.

 

Connie Dierking is a former primary teacher who has spent over 25 years immersed in the art and science of beginning reading. She is the author of multiple professional books for teachers interested in learning more about the connections between reading, writing, speaking, and listening. She is currently a primary literacy coach providing encouragement and assistance to the teachers in Pinellas County Florida.

Connie will be a speaker at the 2019 National Reading Recovery & K-6 Literacy Conference, February 9-12, in Columbus, OH. Her session is titled “Speaking and Listening:  The Forgotten Pieces of the Literary Puzzle.”

Using Share Time to Inspire and Instruct Writers

2023-02-08T18:10:10-05:00December 6th, 2018|General, General Education, Latest News, Teaching|

by Leah Mermelstein

Recently, I was speaking with a group of fourth-grade teachers who use The Teachers College Writing Units of Study. They had just taught a minilesson about using ‘boxes and bullets’ as a planning tool. Not surprisingly, some students had success with the lesson, while others struggled. It seemed natural for us to brainstorm possible follow up minilessons, but after a few minutes, we wondered aloud if we could better address this issue with a few well thought out share sessions. We came up with a few open-ended questions and over the next few days, the teachers used those questions to jump-start conversations with their students. The teachers were amazed by the kids’ conversations during the share sessions. They saw firsthand how conversations deepened the students’ understanding of ‘boxes and bullets’ and untangled some of their confusions about planning in general. Not only that but by listening in to these conversations, the teachers got some great ideas for future lessons. Share sessions, when done thoughtfully are as instructional (if not more so) than minilessons or conferences. The question then is: How can we ensure that the shares that we do in our classroom are instructional and engaging for everyone?

Shares as Conversations:
In my book, Don’t Forget to Share, I talk about how share sessions in the writing workshop are most useful when teachers structure them, not as a second minilesson, but as a time for kids to have instructional conversations with one another. When I’m conducting share sessions as conversations, I begin by telling the kids the topic of the conversation. Then, kids talk to one another in partnerships and finally, they talk together as a group. In my book, I outlined four different types of share conversations (Content, Craft, Process, and Progress). Over time, I have layered new thinking onto each of these shares, and have had fun developing some new share session ideas as well.

Ultimately, the kinds of shares you can do with your kids are endless. Here are my current five favorite share session conversations. If you’ve read my book, you’ll recognize many of them, but you’ll see some new ones to try out as well.

Content: This type of share starts with a student sharing either her entire piece or a part of her piece. The class retells the piece to make sure they understand it. Finally, they ask questions about the parts that confused them and/or the parts they want to know more about. Based on these questions, the student will decide what revisions she’ll make (if any).  Just recently, I did a content share in a kindergarten class. The little girl wrote a story about having a play date with her friend.  She and her friend were playing under the table. On the last page, she wrote that she was sad. After the class retold her piece they asked questions: Why were you under the table?  Why were you sad?   She explained that they were playing family under the table and that she was sad because her mother came early and she didn’t want to go home.  Ultimately, she revised her story by explaining why she was sad.

Craft: This type of share starts with one child sharing the craft technique he/she tried. The craft might be directly connected to what was taught in the minilesson or it might be something that popped up during a conference. The other kids come to the share with their current writing piece, a pencil, and/or a post-it note. After the child shares, the other kids reread their writing checking to see if the craft technique would work for them. If it does, they make some sort of notation to remind themselves of what they want to try. Finally, they share their findings with one another.

Minilesson: This share starts with a question that is related to the minilesson.  The kids talk about the question as a way to clarify their ideas and deepen their understanding of what was taught. Recently, I conducted a minilesson helping students organize their table of contents in their non-fiction books. After the lesson, many kids were still confused and unable to make substantial changes. During the share, I asked the following questions: What kinds of changes could a writer make to their table of contents? How would those changes help? Because they were talking as a way of thinking, they struggled at times to find the right words but the talk itself brought to a new level of understanding.

Process: During a process share, the teacher poses a question that gets kids to reflect upon some part of the writing process (How does rereading help you?  What kinds of planning can you do in your Writer’s Notebook? How does that planning help you with drafting?  How have you grown in this unit? What can you do now that you couldn’t do in the beginning of the year? How can you take what you learned in this study to the next study?) The kids talk about the question as a way to deepen their understanding of that part of the process, as well as to help themselves transfer their learning into ongoing work.

Spelling: In a spelling conversation, the teacher finds a student who has spelled a word incorrectly and uses that word to provide spelling instruction for all students. The teacher first shares what the student did well and then shows the class the spelling rule or pattern that this word follows. Finally, the kids talk to one another, trying to generate other words that follow the same rule or pattern.  Recently, a student I worked with had spelled ‘played’ as ‘plad.’  First, I pointed out to the class how the child listened closely to the beginning sound of played. Then, I showed the kids how in this word, the long ‘a’ was represented by ‘ay’. Then, the kids talked to one another, brainstorming other words where the long ‘a’ was represented by ‘ay’.

Leah, a student I had the pleasure of working with, called share conversations the ‘bits and pieces’ of all of us.  I love that description and hope that if you conduct your share conversations, you will be able to use the bits and pieces of all of your students to help everyone become more engaged and skillful writers.

Leah Mermelstein is a literacy consultant who works with teachers, literacy coaches, and principals. She is also the author of four books on the teaching of writing and is thrilled to be a presenter at the 2019 National Reading Recovery & K-6 Literacy Conference. Hear more about how talk can instruct and inspire writers at her session titled, Conversations That Inspire and Instruct Student Writers.  You can find here at @MermelsteinLeah or www.leahmermelstein.com.

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