Writer’s
workshop is a great way to teach students new skills while still giving them
the chance to free write. Tompkins (2019) introduces us to the five stages that
are writer’s workshop. She states that the 5 stages are: Prewriting, Drafting,
Revising, Editing, and Publishing (Tompkins, 2019). Each one of the stages is important as it
helps to guide the students through the writing process. However I do think
that when it comes to teaching students new ideas, that it should be done in
either the prewriting, revising or editing stage.
In the prewriting stage, students are brainstorming ideas of what
they want to write about. This is where they think of what their topic is and what
audience they are writing to. The
prewriting stage is the stage that they start
setting up what their writing is going to look like. This would be the perfect
time to teach a mini lesson that might affect their writing. As a teacher, this
would be the time that I would do a mini lesson on the different types of
writing or how the writing should look like. For example, the prewriting stage
would be the best time to teach a lesson on what a persuasive writing look
like. It would allow the students to learn the skills they would need to write
that type of piece before they actually started to write.
While in the revising and editing stage, students are able to go
back and look at what they wrote and what they might want to change. The
revision stage is for making any changes to the writing such as adding or
deleting details, while editing is correcting any mistakes that were found.
Both stages can be the perfect time for teaching students new skills that have
to do with what they already wrote. The
students already have a product written and can use it while you are teaching
them the new ideas and skills. For example, the revising stage would be the
perfect place to do a mini lesson on how to organize your ideas to make them
flow. The students can listen to the mini lesson and then look at their work to
make sure that their ideas flow.
I knew that talking the time to prewrite and draft your papers
were important, but I never realized how important they are. Tompkins (2019)
mentions that “Writers participate in these activities during prewriting:
Choosing a topic; Considering a purpose, audience, and form; Generating and
organizing ideas for writing” (p.5). I never realized how important it is to
think about what the purpose is of the writing that you are doing and the
audience that you are writing for. The way you write differs depending on who
you are writing for. Drafting is a great way to have students start the writing
process. I feel like a lot of students get nervous to write because they think
that their first copy has to be perfect. I love the idea that Tompkins (2019)
mentioned about having the students skip lines while they are writing in this
stage. It gives the students room so that that they can go back and make
revisions within their writing. She also added “Similarly, they write on only
one side of a sheet of paper so that the paper can be cut apart or rearranged
during the next stage” (Tompkins, 2019, p.8). I really like that idea as it
helps to show students how ideas can be moved around in the paper. By
incorporating these ideas, my students would be able to enhance their ability
to plan what they are writing. They would be able to write in a way that they
are able to make changes and revisions.
My
biggest challenge with running a writers/readers workshop is that every student
is in a different stage with their work. I would always have a hard time
remembering which student was in which stage and how I could help them. One of
the recommendations Tompkins (2019) gives is to have a chart with all the
stages so that the students can either clip their name on what stage they are
in or put their popsicle stick in what stage they are in. This would allow me
as a teacher to quickly see what stage everybody is in and give me a better
idea of how I can help them individually.
Tompkins, G. E. (2019). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product (7th
ed.). Upper
Saddle River,
NJ: Merrill.
Preston, C. Writer’s workshop clip chart. Organized
classroom, less stress more effectiveness for teachers. https://organizedclassroom.com/writers-workshop-clip-chart/
(2011). Prewriting strategies. KU writing
center. Create. Compose. Communicate. http://writing.ku.edu/prewriting-strategies
