Writing+Workshop+-+Chapter+2

Writer's notebooks
It was great for me to be reading this chapter and realise how much we already do so well in our writing lessons! The chapter talks about many teachers not having the time for 3 lessons of writing a week - we have already ensured that each class has one hour of writing a day. For the most part we ensure that we all have scheduled writing lessons at the same time each day so that the kids know what to expect and can begin preparing for their writing session each day - Fletcher specifically says that this is important for students writing development.

Fletcher also writes about how important it is to give writers free choice of topics. I think we do this really well in Prep but I'm not sure how often students are given free reign in older classes..?

Writer's notebooks sound really exciting and extremely important - I'm really excited to be able to begin writer's notebooks in my class one day! I'm unsure if writer's notebooks will work as well in younger grades - Flick currently has a class notebook for her Grade 1's; I'd like to experiment with individual notebooks from the beginning of the year with Grade 1s or 2s to determine whether they will work as well as in older grades.

Fletcher asks how you, as the teacher, would keep track of where each student is at in their writing process as they should all be at different stages with editing, polishing, publishing, etc, etc. At Birmingham PS I was in a classroom where the teacher had a writing wall with each stage of writing and each student had their name on a cartoon pencil which they would move to the appropriate section, ie. editing, so that the teacher would always know what stage each child was at in their writing process. Would it be beneficial to record this data in some kind of spreadsheet so you could keep track over the year of how students progress throughout the year - ie. they may begin the year starting heaps of writing ideas (junk drawer) and never developing them further but over the year they may publish quite a few - may be interesting to see how the kids develop over the year?

Structure
I think that we as a school follow the 'components of an hour long writing workshop' pretty well. We have had many meetings about the structure of our writing lessons so I believe that this model is followed well here.

Space
Space is a very important issue that teachers generally consider greatly - it takes ages to decide how to place tables to have enough room for floor space, classroom libraries, etc, etc. I completely agree with Fletcher that it's important to have a 'meeting place' (floor space) to hold mini-lessons, tables arranged for each student to be comfortable - allowing them to sit on the floor if they choose, and allowing for group discussion in some areas of the class and quiet areas in others.

Classroom walls
I love the idea of having student work displayed - I think we are doing this very well; Danny's office, Flick's back wall. I believe we could improve on this display of writing though. I also believe that we are doing very well with our anchor charts - each class had made a big effort to ensure that they have created charts on many different topics as a class.