Topic: Writing Workshop

The writing workshop is an opportunity to ensure every student feels safe and welcomed into your classroom community and empowers students by inviting them to be all-in on learning.

Tips to help you adapt your writing workshop to support multilingual language learners.

Children not only need to write, they also need direct, explicit instruction in the skills and qualities of effective writing.

In what ways can an understanding of the relationship between reading and writing make planning more efficient?

When our students are writing with optimism, all sorts of questions and possibilities stream through their minds.

Today on the podcast we’re exploring the stories we tell, and how we can create a classroom community that builds space for everyone’s story.

What do we do when students are reluctant to write? The most important thing to remember is that it's the conditions, not the kids.

How can we create daily structures and routines that support writers?

The same in-process response that professional writers receive is even more crucial for children. Learn how to teach children to use the language of writers to graciously give and receive feedback.

What makes for a good writing workshop? The answer is less complicated than you might think.

When students have lots of choices about what they will write about and how they will write it, there are many benefits.

In this sample chapter from Lucy Calkins' highly anticipated Teaching Writing, Lucy discusses how she came to the field of writing instruction.

Student conversations about writing, whether with a peer or a supportive adult, can provide powerful support on multiple levels. Opportunities to talk during writing workshop might take the form of rehearsal for writing, problem solving, reflection, feedback, or goal setting.

Some children, no doubt, are just naturally reflective. I don’t doubt that much of Lucas’ thoughtfulness about his work was just part of who he is. But all children— and adults for that matter—can be taught to be more reflective.

Getting Started with Beginning Writers is not a script you can follow, of course. But regardless of the children sitting in front of you, and regardless of whether it's the beginning of the year or sometime later, there are very specific big ideas and beliefs that can guide your practice.

Learning never occurs in a straight line. Lisa Cleaveland and Katie Wood Ray, co-authors of Getting Started with Beginning Writers, know that this is especially true when it comes to learning to write.

Whatever your teaching constraints may be, choice and joy can find a place your classroom.

As students move up the grades and further in their history educations, they will be expected to write about it in increasingly sophisticated ways.